


Apologetic Birthday Cake

by Chlodovech



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: And Aomine is a jerk, Aomine Daiki & Momoi Satsuki Friendship, Blueberries are also in the menu, Childhood Friends, Kagami is a big ol' sap, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Momoi can see his bullshit, Other, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, and Wakamatsu has a huge crush on Satsuki that he won't admit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:42:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 40,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21946768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chlodovech/pseuds/Chlodovech
Summary: After a nasty fight with Aomine, Momoi begs Kagami to help her with a plan to patch up their friendship. With Aomine's birthday coming soon, Kagami takes this chance to do something for him as well.He just wants to make something extra special, that's all.Momoi half believes it. Kagami isn't as oblivious as he would like to be. Nor is Dai-chan.
Relationships: Aomine Daiki & Momoi Satsuki, Aomine Daiki/Kagami Taiga, Kagami Taiga & Momoi Satsuki
Comments: 31
Kudos: 99





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ho boy. It's been a long, long time since I wrote for this fandom, but my love for AoKaga will never die.
> 
> This one here is an exercise way to brush the rust off my writing because I intend on writing more frequently from now on. However, it was supposed to be a one-shot, but my dumbass got carried away with it and so I had to split it in the middle, so here is part one!

She's lost count of how many times she walked in circles around her room. At irregular intervals she stops to glance at her phone, lying silently by the neat stack of SLAM and Teen Vogue on her desk, but then she catches her lower lip between her teeth and resumes her incessant pacing.

This has been going for almost one hour now, as the Cinnamoroll clock hanging above the door informs with its soft, steady ticks. The poor thing has barely any color left, bleached throughout the years it spent under direct sunlight until she found another corner to keep it. There are just a few numbers remaining now, and the Sanrio character that was once winking at her has no eyes left.

_“Why do you still have this thing? It looks creepy.”_

_“Mean! Don’t say that. I like it!”_

_“Why? Sentimental value?”_

_“Uh, n-no! I just—”_

_“Heh, you dummy.”_

The memory makes her falter in her steps and she stumbles. She exhales, her shoulders slumping. _Why was she so nervous?_ It was a simple phone call. She’s used to much more difficult tasks than that.

A phone call to a guy is nothing compared to what she’s been doing for years.

She mindlessly rearranges the fur rug with her foot, straightening the folded corner that made her stumble. When she raises her eyes, she catches a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror of the vanity dresser and is aghast at her appearance.

_When did my hair become this mess?!_

She gawks at the mirror for a moment, then sucks in a breath and digs her fingers through her fringe, pushing it back and away from her frustrated face.

“Just ask him. The world will not end today if he says no.”

Telling herself that, she snatches her phone and searches up his name in the contacts list, then presses the call button and sits down on her bed. The action didn’t take a minute, but she can already feel her hands getting clammy. Trying to calm down, she fixes a few strands of hair that have fallen from her messy bun while listening to the call dial. After the fourth ring, though, she stops and goes quiet. Curling and uncurling her toes inside her socks, she listens intently, hoping for something.

At the sixth ring she lowers her eyes. Perhaps she shouldn’t be doing this, after all. Even if he heard her out, kind as he was, there was no certainty that he could help – or want to.

She takes in a short breath, closing her eyes. She should accept it. It was up to her alone to fix the damage caused between her and—

A noise coming from the other side of the line startles her and she presses her phone to her ear. It sounds like fabric being frantically dragged against the speakers. A brief but clear curse, and then:

_“Hello?”_

The sound of his voice makes her jolt, but she would never admit to it. She sits up, and strands of hair fall from her bun again.

_“Hi, Kagamin! How are you? I hope I’m not interrupting you on anything!”_

_“… Momoi-san?”_

* * *

The phone call indeed was easy and fast. She was out of her house and on her way in just a few minutes after it was over. But then again, Kagami seemed wanting more explanations to what was going on and sounded very confused before she hung up.

She will apologise later, but it was an emergency that is better discussed in person.

Momoi checks her appearance on the window and pursues her lips at the sight of her unruly fringe. It’s not been a week since we fought and the disaster already shows on me, she thinks, running her fingers through her hair again.

They stop at a station and most of the passengers flood out, leaving her alone in the car. Seeing as there are still quite a few stations ahead until she drops off, Momoi opens her satchel and fishes out her wallet, pulling out a slip of paper from inside.

One of the things she is proudest of is how organised her notes are: they are always written in favourite gel pens and in her best calligraphy, and she gladly lends them to fellow classmates or to her boys whenever they needed. This one is not the case though, and she grimaces at her rushed handwriting and the smudges of ink peppered across the paper, results from the cheap pen she found in the kitchen cabinet that exploded in her hands.

Regardless, she can still read it and everything she needs is there.

“I wonder if it will be big enough. Maybe I should’ve chosen another one…” Momoi mutters to herself, her pink eyes scanning each item of the list with careful attention, and the corner of her lips curl up in a smile as she reads one of them. “Ahh but Dai-chan always liked blueberries a lot, so this will be perfect!”

It had been so many years that, when she remembered it, it felt like a blessing. When they were younger, whenever their families traveled to the countryside Aomine and her would often spend the summer evenings harvesting blueberries together. They would chow down more than half of their bucket worth of berries, but none of their mothers complained as they always left enough for a pie to be baked later.

Still, Aomine had this unending gluttony for blueberries that overshadowed Momoi’s own; she would sit down and watch this strange ritual her best friend had. First, he would pluck each one from the bushes and study them with careful attention. If he found any that wasn’t up to his standards, he would just toss it into his mouth and move on to the next one.

(She never managed to figure out what was his criteria, either.)

Then, once he had gathered ten perfect blueberries, he patiently stuck them into the tip of his fingers. Once that was done and Aomine had blueberry fingertips, he would gleefully plop each finger in his mouth and gulp down the berry, until satisfied.

Momoi smiles, clutching her satchel closer to her lap. In the countryside, Aomine would always come back home with a glowing tan on his dark skin and clothes peppered with blue stains, which his mother reproached him to no avail. It also meant that they could spend the nights watching old VHS of NBA games together, with Aomine gushing over each masterful dribble and throwing popcorn all across the rug and her taking notes of each technique the commentators spoke of, then translating them to Japanese in the next day with the help of her mother.

There wasn’t a summer when they didn’t have fun back then.

The subway stops at another station and the doors slide open with a shrill sound, cool air and passengers rushing inside.

Outside on the platform, she sees a woman trying to soothe a little girl in her arms, whose round face is beet-red and wet with tears.

My face would get all red when I cried too, Momoi thinks, as she watches the small girl hug her mother’s shoulders and hide her face, perhaps already getting tired of her tears. She watches them until the doors slid shut and they continue to move forward.

The subway trudges along the lines, the cars jolting whenever their wheels run over loose pebbles and jolting old memories from her, a frown creeping down her brow.

Now that she thinks about it, they didn’t always have fun during their summers.

There was this one evening when they were picking blueberries, back to back, and she remembers feeling drowsy. She had been up most of the night before rereading her basketball notes under the duvets with a lantern, hours after her mother had sent her to bed. By the time the next day rolled in she was sluggish and bleary eyed.

Dai-chan had complained all day how slow she was, and they bickered most of the time, her mood getting sourer as time passed. So, when they got to pick blueberries without a word and listening only to the calming sound of the evening cicadas shrilling around them, she remembers how much better she had felt.

Until, that is, Dai-chan had suspiciously shuffled behind her and tapped her on the shoulder.

_“Oi, Satsuki. Look who I found!”_

Now that she’s older she kind of regrets how badly she reacted, but the memory of turning around and being faced by a huge, bulbous frog just when her mood was starting to improve was like being drenched in ice-cold water. She froze, and girl and frog stared at each other.

The last straw to her 9-year-old self was Aomine, when seeing her lack of immediate reaction, decided to put the frog on top of her head.

The details are vague after that, but essentially, she had marched back home, ignoring Aomine who followed her along the way, and slammed the front door on his face.

And well, yes— she cried her eyes out on her mother’s lap.

Momoi smiles softly, playing idly with the hem of her skirt. Years have passed since then, but their friendship hasn’t changed much. If anything, she realises now how they often repeat the same dumb mistakes.

“We are just two idiots sometimes, aren’t we?” she shakes her head, raising her eyes to the luminous board above the doors and notices her station is coming next. Swinging her satchel across her shoulder, she stands up and tidies up her hair one last time as she checks out her reflection on the windows. “But this time I will fix this.”

The doors slide open soon later and she leaps out, her skirt fluttering in the cool breeze.

* * *

She’s grown used to being around tall people, but his mane of red hair makes it even easier to spot him at the station. People around are also glancing in his direction, which helps too.

Kagami Taiga grabs attention even outside the court. Dai-chan would never be able to resist for long, she thinks.

“Ah, Kagamin! Found you!” She sings, skipping closer to him.

Kagami raises his head at the sound of her voice, and she notices how he shoves his phone inside his pocket before pushing himself off the wall he was leaning on.

“Hey, Momoi-san,” He greets with a quirk at the corner of his mouth, watching her approach with bright, red eyes. She meets his gaze with her pink ones, a gloss-coated smile adorning her face. “I thought you’d take a little longer to come by.”

“Mhm? Why? Just because I’m a girl?” Her tone is casual, but the jab connects. Kagami’s forked eyebrows go up and disappear under his fringe, and she contains her smile.

“A-Ah? No! I didn’t mean to—”

“Just so you know I’m practical and pragmatic even when dolling myself up, alright?”

“I just thought—”

“Plus, I couldn’t bear leaving you waiting for me. That’d be impolite.” She finishes with a smile, pulling her satchel closer to her.

Kagami stands there for a moment, looking at her as if he were still chewing on something else to say. She watches him for a moment but finally gives in.

“You’re so funny, Kagamin! It’s been so long since we last talked that I forgot about that.” She giggles.

Kagami’s broad shoulders visibly slump with that, a quiet huff escaping from his lips and a hand raising to grip at his nape.

“Don’t tease me like that.”

“I’m sorry!” She laughs more, following his lead when he starts to make way to the station’s exit. “It’s just that your reactions are so amusing that I can’t help myself.”

She receives a grumble for a response, but there’s a smile on the corner of his lips.

“I’m sure they are,” Kagami says, walking past other people with ease as they part their way for him, much like how sardines do whenever a shark dives into their school, all avoiding its attacks by just making a clean path on its course. Satsuki steps behind him and glues to his back, grateful for not having to swerve this many people in a crowded train station again. “It seems like others think the same. Aomine, for one, pulls all sorts of stupid crap on me just to piss me off.”

Momoi smiles and glances up, but only catches sight of the silver chain around his neck.

“Oh? He does?”

“Hell yeah, he does! And you just now had the same look in your eyes as he does whenever he’s about to start acting up with me,” Kagami grumbles, glancing down at her from the corners of his eyes. “Looks like that bastard rubbed this annoying habit on you.”

Her smile widens, and she skips to his side when they finally step out of the station and there aren’t so many people crowding around them.

If she were to be frank, many of Aomine’s quirks rubbed off on her.

“Mhm! Looks like it!”

* * *

“So, if I got this right, you and Aomine… had a fight?”

Kagami’s voice comes out even but Satsuki can hear an edge of uncertainty in it still. His eyes are mostly focused on his burgers, avoiding looking at her too much, she notices. Perhaps he thinks he won’t seem to be pressuring her this way – or still timid in her presence, even.

“Yes, we did,” She says with a nod, dropping her gaze to the tabletop. They stopped at a Maji Burger close to his apartment to grab something, and she fidgets in her seat in the booth. “We had an argument after practice a few days ago. It was very stupid, but…” she trails off, pursuing her lips at the memory.

Practice was cut short that day, with Wakamatsu sending the team off early to they could study for the upcoming exams. Satsuki stayed behind, though, sitting on the gym’s bleachers with a last-minute practice report for Coach Harasawa.

When Aomine finally exited the lockers he eyed her for almost a minute, as if waiting for her to finish fumbling with her papers, but seeing as she didn’t seem like she was leaving anytime soon he did that grating eye-roll and asked what she was doing.

_“Being a responsible student. You wouldn’t understand what that is.”_

Aomine just blinked, unimpressed at her snide remark.

 _“Aren’t you a big girl,”_ Aomine drawled and she ignored how he stepped closer to her, peeking at her papers with disinterest. _“I thought responsible students were supposed to do their schoolwork during class or at home, not half-ass them during periods.”_

She paused at that for a moment, then slapped her clipboard with a hand and lifted her head to meet Aomine’s eyes. He just looked back with one raised eyebrow, like she was supposed to drop what she was doing and walk back home with him already.

 _“’Half-ass’? I am among the Top 5 of our school, and even won with merits the literature championship last year!”_ She huffed. _“I wouldn’t be the team’s manager either if I half-assed—”_ She trailed off as Aomine stuck his pinkie inside his ear, averting his eyes away from her and tuning her out.

Satsuki had chewed on her lower lip and lowered her head, glancing over her practice notes again and trying to ignore the heat crawling from her stomach and up to her neck.

Then, with a deadbeat tone, she added, _“You wouldn’t even be in this school if it wasn’t for your basketball renown, seeing as you still need others to hand-feed you their notes two days before exams to get passable scores.”_

Her voice was low, almost a whisper, but they were alone in the gymnasium, and Aomine had always had acute senses.

_“Excuse me?”_

It had been a long time since Satsuki last saw that look on his face: clenched jaws and barred teeth. His eyes narrowed, their blues cold like steel, and there was such a deep scowl on his face that there was a crease in between his eyebrows – one that had been slowly smoothing out in the past months since Winter Cup.

Her stupid words were now a curse on her, and she wishes nothing else but to take them back.

They stared at each other, only for a few seconds but to her, it was an eternity. She was pinned to the spot by his blue eyes like there was an icicle pierced into her stomach and spreading chills throughout her body and leaving her cold.

Satsuki parted her lips, but no words came out. Her hands were trembling, losing grip of her pencil and of the situation.

Aomine just twisted his lips into a sneer and turned his back to her, making way out of the gymnasium, his footsteps resounding heavy across the tall walls.

_“You can choke on these papers. I don’t want to look at your face anymore.”_

He spat those last words above his shoulders, voice gravely and bitter, and didn’t spare her another glance before he shoved the gym doors open and left, his tall silhouette a harsh contrast in the sparse late evening sunlight.

Since then she couldn’t get in contact with Aomine no matter what she tried, what with avoiding her even in the school halls and not acknowledging her presence during practices. It is even a miracle that he is still attending practices when she was certain he would start skipping again.

“He wouldn’t dare. I’m making sure he goes to them,” Kagami interject when she says so, his tone firm, now finally looking at her and noticing the sullen expression on her face. “That asshole… I wish I could always be around to knock down a few pegs of that infuriating attitude of his and—”

“Oh no! Don’t mind that, Kagamin!” Satsuki interrupts, growing nervous at the way his brow creases and how he chews his plastic straw. “As you heard, I am fully in blame this time, so I plan on patching this up, too. I’ve come up with a plan and everything!” It’s still a little forced since the memory of their fight still jolts pains in her chest, but she smiles up at him and is relieved to grab Kagami’s attention.

“You have a plan?” He asks, eyeing her up curiously. She’s grasping her satchel bag with both hands, holding it tightly to her body. Suspiciously tight. “So… What is it about? And why did you call me?”

Satsuki finally vented her inner turmoil that she insisted on telling in person, but Kagami still didn’t get a clue as to why she came to him to talk to. The glint in her eye, however, hides something else.

Haven’t I seen these eyes before, he asks himself, looking warily at Satsuki’s apparent innocent smile.

“I decided that I will bake a birthday cake for Aomine-kun as an apology!”

Oh.

“And I decided that you would be the perfect person to help me realise this plan! I have the recipe right here.” She says, patting her satchel bag with finality.

_Oh._

He was right, he had seen those eyes before. Coach Riko had the same look when she put the idea in her head that she was going to make curry for the team one day. It took her 3 whole weeks to accomplish that, and a lot of patience on his end.

Meanwhile, Aomine’s birthday was next Sunday and from the little he had heard from Aomine himself, Momoi-san was a much tougher case than his coach.

“A cake, you say?” He parrots, his words drawling, trying to catch up with his quivering smile. “That’ll be easy. You said you have it with you?”

* * *

“Where did you find this recipe again?”

“On a confectionery website.”

Kagami nods.

“Was there a video demo or something…?”

“No, none that I noticed.”

He nods again, a bit more harshly this time, scanning each ingredient with careful eyes, his frown growing deeper with each step described in the recipe.

That, in fact, would not be easy at all.

Where do you even find poppy seeds, he thought to himself as he took notice how long it would take to bake a cake like that. It didn’t seem to be a big one, but it sure was intricate like hell and he was never keen on baking sweets in the first place.

“I’m just making it worse, aren’t I?”

Kagami’s eyes snap back up to Satsuki, who sits across him with a doleful smile on her lips, her fingers drawing senseless patterns in the condensation of her iced-tea cup. Kagami tilts his head and Satsuki sighs, fidgeting in her chair.

“I don’t know where to find poppy seeds either. I decided on this cake because Aomine-kun loves blueberries, but this is way out of my zone.” She mumbled, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “He still doesn’t want to talk to me, but I should just apologise instead of coming up with fancy surprises…” she trails off, slumping on her seat. “And I’m wasting your time, too.”

“W-What?” Kagami stammers, heat rising to his neck. He said that aloud without realizing it and now she was getting sad again. He pursues his lips and scoots closer to the table. “No, come on! Don’t say that. I do want to help. It’s just…” he bites onto his next words, seeing how she watches him carefully, teary-eyed.

Shit. He was never good with words and now he’s having to dance around them completely off-beat. He coughs, playing with a burger wrapper he balled up after he was done eating. “This recipe doesn’t look simple and I’ve never used some of the ingredients listed here. I usually take days testing new stuff before I feel confident to serve it to others...”

Satsuki visibly deflates. He wants to kick himself.

“It’s alright, Kagamin. You were already too kind for listening to me and this silly—”

“But I still want to try!” Kagami exclaims, the fervour in his voice taking a jolt of surprise from Satsuki. He folds the recipe and hands it back to her, then sits back on his chair. Holding her gaze, he continues, “I don’t think he deserves something as nice as a birthday cake, but you two still need to patch up. You’ve known him for a long time, right?”

Satsuki stares at him, still holding the slip of paper which is now crumpled and sports a few oily marks from Kagami’s burgers. She nods, puzzled at his question.

“Yes… Since childhood.”

“Then that’s all that matters. Childhood friendships are important.” Kagami finishes with a beam, and the dimples that appear on his cheeks bring out a smile of her own.

Something clicks in her mind then, and Satsuki recalls Kagami’s long-lasting friendship with Yōsen’s star shooting guard Himuro Tatsuya, and how they solved an old feud through basketball.

Looking at it now she realises how Kagami was indeed the perfect person to reach out to.

“Oh, Kagamin, thank you!” her voice comes out tremulous, and she brings up her hands to squeeze at her eyes. “Thank you so, so much!”

“It’s no problem— Oi, hold on… Are you crying?” Kagami stammers, glancing between Satsuki and the people sitting around them. If someone were to see her crying, they might start thinking nonsense about the two of them and Kagami’s already dealing with more than what he can handle. “Momoi-san, uh, c’mon now… We have to go shopping.”

“Mhm?” Satsuki looks up, her attention picked by how her thin eyebrows furrow above her tears brimmed eyes. “Shopping?”

“Yeah,” Kagami chuckles in amusement as he stands up, taking his empty tray to the nearest bin and hearing Satsuki stand up and follow closely behind. “We need to go find those poppy seeds, right? Hell if I know where to find those.”

She beams, walking out of Maji Burger with a spring in her steps.

“Right! And vanilla buttercream, too!” She adds, effortlessly keeping pace with him as she pulls her bag closer to her. “I already know where to get the best blueberries in Tokyo, so we just need to hope the rest will be easy to get.”

“Oh, right. Blueberries…” Kagami mumbles, his forehead suddenly creasing as if taken by a sudden thought. Satsuki eyes him but says nothing.

They walk down a few blocks and she’s enthralled in the preparations for the surprise when he finally asks, his voice even and unusually flat.

“So… He likes them?”

“Mhm?”

“Blueberries,” Kagami repeats, bringing up a hand to scratch at the back of his neck, which she notes is oddly flushed. “Aomine likes blueberries?”

Satsuki doesn’t reply immediately and watches instead the flush on Kagami’s neck creeps up to his cheeks. He doesn’t look at her, though, instead keeping his gaze straight ahead, waiting for her response.

_How curious._

She nods her head at last, a grin spreading across her face.

“Yeah! He definitely does!” She replies, laughter bubbling in her voice. “Aomine-kun won’t admit it nowadays, but he loves blueberries and used to eat a lot when he was little. He hasn't had any for years now, though, so that’s why I want to make this cake for him.”

He listens with careful attention, but all she gets in return is a curt nod from Kagami, who says nothing else on the matter as they approach the first market. However, she does notice how his red eyes gleamed at her response, a minute change in his expression giving away how much yearned for that small piece of information.

I was right, Satsuki thinks to herself, holding the basket as she watches him methodically inspect the best ingredients. Kagami is the perfect guy for this.

* * *

“Are you sure you’re okay with going to the station alone?” Kagami asks from the kitchen, wiping his counter clean while watching Satsuki stuff her belongings back in her satchel and the ingredients in plastic bags. “It’s no trouble at all, you know.”

“You’re too kind, Kagamin!” Satsuki says from over her shoulder, picking up the bags and testing them to make sure they will not tear along the way. “But like I said, it’s fine! I don’t mind walking back by myself. I already bothered you enough for today, anyway.”

She flicks her pink gaze to the pile of dirty dishes in the kitchen’s sink with a smile. Kagami scoffs in return, an amused smirk on his lips.

“Don’t worry about that. He always demands food when he comes by. And since he’s always here I’m used to cooking for us both, which is enough for an army I guess.”

Satsuki watches him for a moment, allowing that information to settle. Then with a sharp glint in her eyes, she asks, voice almost too soft:

“He who?”

“Hm?”

“You said he comes by often. He who?” she repeats and notices a crease form in between his forked eyebrows. “Are you speaking of Aomine-kun? Ah, I hope he’s not emptying your house out of food! He’s so unthoughtful sometimes, that dummy…”

Maybe it’s because it’s late and he’s tired, but Kagami’s reaction is a lot more subdued than what she expected. She assumed his face would flush bright and excuses or made-up lies stumble out of his mouth like a broken dam. Maybe, in his embarrassment, he would even have the cheek to tell her to shut up. (She wouldn’t mind anyway, used as she is to being around boys and their ogre-like manners.)

Instead, Kagami’s reaction is quiet and so… _Fascinating._

For a solid moment he holds her gaze with wide red eyes, standing motionless like a deer caught in headlights. He parts his lips, as if the excuses she expected were trying to come out, but he wets his lips and averts his eyes from her instead, keeping his gaze low and his thoughts to himself.

The light in his apartment is bright enough, but she isn’t sure if what she sees are shadows bouncing off his face or a small, joyful smile.

“Yeah, that’s him. At least once a week Aomine comes over after we play ball, whining that he hates being sweaty. Then hogs up my couch and asks for food,” The confession comes out in an even tone which she’ll give it to him, but she can see from where she stands how he’s twisting the dishrag in his hands, a far-off look in his eyes as he sinks in memories. “We used to drop by Maji to grab a bite— the one we were today, you know? But one time we finished our game too late and there weren’t any places open to eat anymore. So, I uh, brought him over and grilled burgers for us. And now we settled in eating at my place.”

She stares at him, and Kagami chuckles.

“It’s better like this, anyway.”

Silence falls between them like a curtain; Satsuki out of words and Kagami lost in thought, the smile playing on his lips reaching his red eyes and that could never pass as a trick of the light.

Indeed, that was rather intriguing.

“Your kindness will be your fall one day, Kagamin.”

Kagami snaps out of his reverie by her solemn remark, a crease forming on his forehead again.

“What?!”

“Aomine-kun never had anyone make burgers for him. You signed a contract with the devil and now he won’t stop following you around,” Satsuki shakes her head for dramatical effect. “I hope you’re ready for what’s coming for you!”

She turns to grab her things and carry them to the door, but doesn’t miss the sound of his light chuckle.

“So! I will take the extra ingredients and decorations and you will keep the rest with you. Is that right?”

“Right. Don’t forget to keep these over here inside the fridge, not the freezer.” Kagami points to one of the bags.

Satsuki nods, eyeing them once more to make sure she’s not forgetting anything. Never did she need to keep in mind how to store food properly in a fridge, and now she has to sort through all the contents lest they spoil. She hopes there is enough space inside her fridge for all of that.

“I hear you~” she singsongs, opening the door of his apartment and shuffling with her bags to the elevator. “Once again, thank you so much for helping, Kagamin! Tomorrow I will have to leave school a little late because of a meeting with our coach, but after that…?”

Kagami smiles, the white of his teeth peering from behind his lips and he crosses his arms, leaning on the doorframe.

“After that you can come over. We will start on the cake then.” He watches her wiggle with her bags in anticipation, and the elevator dings as it arrives at his floor. “If anything happens you can call me again, yeah?”

“Sure!” Satsuki chirps from inside the elevator, one of her legs sticking out to keep the door from sliding shut. After she finishes arranging the bags inside, she pokes out her head and gives him a thumbs-up. “See you tomorrow, captain! This cadet over here will make sure nothing bad happens to these food dyes until tomorrow afternoon!”

Kagami chuckles and waves at her. He watches the elevator doors slid shut before stepping back inside his apartment and closing the door. He presses his back against it, a heavy sigh escaping his lips, and for a moment he stands there, mulling over the day’s events.

“So… He likes blueberries.” He whispers to himself, flicking his eyes to the pile of dishes in his sink. He chuckles, pushing himself off the door. “Never would I have imagined.”

Kagami and Satsuki had spent a great part of the day visiting different supermarkets and local grocery stores in their hunt for the ingredients cited in Satsuki’s chosen recipe. When they finally crossed out all ingredients from the list the sun was setting and their feet aching, so he cooked them a meal and they agreed to start the next day.

“I don’t know about how much cooking Momoi-san will be doing, though…” Kagami mutters. A deep exhale escaping from his lips when he finally peels off the sweaty shirt that’s been bothering him for a couple of hours now. “Here’s hoping this cake will at least happen.”

He drops the shirt on the floor, as well as his socks and jeans, leaving a trail as he slips off his clothes and makes way to his bathroom, deadset he won’t do anything else that other than pass out on his bed, his exam studies be damned.

When the hot water hits the back of Kagami’s neck, it also hits him that Aomine didn’t talk to him the whole day.

Unlike on school days, when they usually message each other nonsense until the day is over so they meet at a street court to play, on weekends Kagami usually has no sign of Aomine until past noon when the jackass comes by unannounced, ball tucked under one arm and duffel bag slung over the shoulder, his stuff to spend the weekend over. However, this was the first time that Kagami got a dead signal from Aomine and he won’t deny that this left him… A little restless. Throughout the day he kept checking on his phone, hoping for messages or a call, and when he realised he kept _looking out the window_ he stopped and decided to try studying.

That is, tried. He has no idea how much time he wasted rereading the same page of his schoolbook, too distracted to absorb even the most basic of information. So, when his phone started ringing from somewhere under his duvets, Kagami was quick to push his books aside and hunt for his phone.

“Could he been busy today?” Kagami wonders, cupping water in his hands and splashing in his face. But it was for the best, he thinks. I never expected Momoi to be the one to come by, and considering her surprise… I’ll have to make up lies to avoid him, too.

The thought brings a grimace to his face. Kagami is a shitty liar, but this is important enough for him to give his best.

Not only that, but he also hid from her the entire reason as to why he decided to help. The gesture to bake him a cake was sweet, and he would’ve helped in a heartbeat, but one thing he didn’t tell Momoi-san was how her plan also worked out for him.

On his birthday, Aomine took him to a place outside Tokyo where he used to go to catch crayfish. Kagami had been curious about his old habit of catching them, so even when Aomine later used them as an excuse for Kagami to make them dinner, Kagami was still overjoyed. It was a absolute blast of a day, even if all they did was talk shit to each other and splash around in the water. Then, in the past few weeks, Aomine’s been nagging him about his own and how much he wanted a good surprise.

_“A surprise?” Kagami scoffed, not turning from the stove where he stirred the bacon pieces one Saturday morning. “Doesn’t that already defeat the purpose?”_

_“Eh? Nah, of course not.” Aomine disagreed as expected, lying on the couch and flipping through channels._

_Kagami’s couch isn’t of a design that was made to be comfortable for a person sprawled across it. Especially a six-point-four feet tall dude. But somehow Aomine made art whenever he decided to get comfy, and he decidedly looked so on his couch._

_Kagami secretly enjoyed looking at him there, sometimes._

_“You see, even if you know there’s a surprise coming, what truly matters is the presentation.”_

_“Sure. Because you know all about that,” Kagami snorted, glancing over his shoulder at the crown of blue locks poking from one end of the couch. “Yesterday when we went shopping for shoes you had your shirt turned inside out.”_

_“Oi, shut your ass up,” Aomine complained, sitting up to shoot a glare at Kagami._

_“And on our way back, on the train, there was this old lady sitting across from us,” Kagami continues, turning to face Aomine with a cheeky smile. “She watched you fall asleep against the window and drool all over yourself.”_

_Aomine stared at him, baffled, his eyebrows scrunched and mouth agape._

_“That was_ definitely _not a good presentation from you, I must say.” Kagami snickered, cleaning his hands in his apron._

_For a moment Aomine did nothing but hold his gaze, no snarky remarks coming out to rebut Kagami. They stared at each other from across the pass-through kitchen window, with Kagami crossing his arms and saying nothing, too stubborn and curious to see what would come next._

_(Well. He was also getting a bit flustered at how Aomine silently regarded him, but who cares?)_

_Aomine moved first. In a foreign gesture, he propped up his elbow on the back of the couch and rested his chin on his palm. Then, with an unusual inoffensive tone, asked:_

_“Why didn’t you do anything about that, then?”_

_Kagami’s raised an eyebrow._

_“Huh? Do what about it?”_

_It wasn’t a frequent expression on Aomine’s face, but it always struck Kagami when he saw it – the way Aomine’s lips curled up in a cat-like smirk, a unique mix of playful and sly that sent chills up and down Kagami’s spine._

_It had a telltale of what he had felt when they first met, Kagami hyperaware of the power lurking beneath his once dull, blue gaze._

_Aomine looked at him with a boyish smile on his face, but his eyes had a glint of something mischievous, and Kagami could stop his from body reacting to it. He just wasn’t sure if what he felt radiating from Aomine’s eyes is that same power or_ something else _, but it felt equally powerful._

_“What a question, Kagami.The polite thing to do is lend your shoulder to a sleepy person to snuggle up to you, didn’t you know?”_

Kagami remembers laughing and telling Aomine that it was a good thing that neither of them were the prime example of good manners. He then turned back to the stove to turn it off and to get the food on the table, but the hairs on his nape and along his arms were standing on end; the weight of blue eyes still on him, watching.

Kagami was terrible at hiding anything from others, even more so Aomine. If he was able to tell Kagami was hiding something from him that day, would he figure him out—

Shaking off those thoughts, Kagami grabs the soap, not wanting to think any further about Aomine when he was showering.

He leaves the bathroom minutes later, sleepily toweling his hair dry.

“Fuck, maybe I shoulda studied a bit... Tetsu won’t give me slack if I ask for his help again,” He pursues his lips, thinking back to how Riko also chewed him out for not having studied and almost failing a past exam. “But fuck me, Japanese History is so—”

An abrupt, familiar beeping sound coming from his living room halts Kagami’s steps, and he looks down the corridor where his trail of clothes lay. Walking over to check it out, he finds his phone ringing inside his discarded jean’s pocket, the sound muffled and a blue light blinking alongside the tune.

Any traces of weariness vanish from his body as he scurries over to grab the yelling phone, cursing as his wet hands get stuck in the fabric. When he fishes it out at last, Kagami checks the caller ID before answering, hesitant, almost in disbelief.

_Ahomine._

Well, shit. At least he was lucky enough that he didn’t call while Momoi was over.

“Yo,” He greets, still crouched by his jeans in the living room.

There’s a brief sound of fabric ruffling in the background before he’s answered:

_“Shit, what took you so long? Thought I was gonna have to send smoke signals at some point.”_

Aomine’s voice comes out husky, and he finishes his sentence with a long, loud yawn. Kagami arches an eyebrow and stands up, picking up his dirty clothes with his free hand.

“Pipe it down. I was in the shower,” he rolls his eyes, unbothered by the fact that Aomine couldn’t see it. “Were you sleeping?”

 _“Just napping,”_ Aomine drawls. There’s a pause where Aomine seems to shift in his bed by the sound of rustling fabrics, then he lets out a grunt, followed by a soft sigh. Kagami assumes he’s stretching himself. Hopes he is. Because his _voice_ and the _sounds_ he’s making are really— _“Came back a few hours ago from shopping with my mother and I passed out. But hey, don’t try me now, alright?”_

“What are you talking about?” Kagami asks.

 _“I’m talking about you not answering my messages,”_ Aomine replies. The tone of his voice is more even now, a sign that he’s fully awake. _“The whole day I had no response from you. I was dragged up and down by my mother while carrying groceries, but when I sent you messages you didn’t even see ‘em,”_ Aomine complains, then clicks his tongue _. “So when I got back I said fuck it and decided to call you. The fuck were you doing all day?”_

Kagami grimaces. Minutes ago, he had come to terms that he would have to make up excuses to Aomine until him and Momoi were done with the cake, _but he wasn’t ready to start it_ _tonight_.

“Ah, you did? My bad. I didn’t see your messages,” He starts slowly and immediately cringes, realising how this makes it even worse for him. On the other side of the line, Aomine huffs against the speaker and Kagami chews the inside of his cheek, thinking about what to say next as he walks to the washing machine to throw his dirty clothes. “Well, I uh… had an unexpected incident today. So I was too busy to check my phone.”

It wasn’t far from the truth – he never imagined receiving a phone call from Momoi Satsuki to asking him to meet up for a talk. So that was a good start.

There’s a pause where Kagami can clearly picture Aomine mulling over this.

 _“An incident, you say?”_ Aomine asks casually, but there’s an edge to his voice that makes Kagami nervous. _“What happened? You better still have all your limbs, Bakagami.”_

“It’s nothing like that!” Kagami huffs, walking back to his bedroom and slumping on his bed. “I… Well, it was my fridge.”

Oh boy. Here it goes.

 _“… Your fridge?”_ Aomine repeats, baffled. _“What?”_

“Yeah. Not long after I came back from school, I noticed water dripping from it, you know? I took out all the food from it and checked where it was coming from, and I guess something broke inside it,” Somehow his voice doesn’t falter, and he pats himself on the back for that. He’s staring hard at the light bulb, though, as if focusing on it will help him not lose his focus just like it would if he were balancing on one foot. “I went around town looking for a specialist, then went to a general store to find the right part to have it repaired.”

Kagami should write down this historical moment. This one, he feels, is solid.

He’s even more assured by the longer pause from Aomine’s end as he chews on this story like a cow on pasture – slow and deliberate. It’s not often that Aomine mulls over something, so that must be a good sign.

It must be or I will be damned, Kagami thinks to himself as he bites his lower. And as Aomine’s lack of reaction drags for longer than what he can take it, his panic building up, he adds:

“But yeah. This is how I spent my day." He says lamely." I would rather have played with you than dealt with this mess, that’s for sure.”

It’s weird. He was nervous when coming up with that lie, but he still felt assured. This comment, on the other hand, is the absolute truth and it sends his heart into a frenzy. Heat is crawling up his neck and he shifts on the bed, grabbing one of the pillows closest to him and holding it against his chest.

(Ah, it still smells like him.)

 _“Heh. Same here,”_ Aomine’s response comes in a chuckle, his voice soft. _“From the moment I passed five-point-six my mom apparently saw me as the perfect pack mule to carry the groceries. And then some.”_

Kagami knows that Aomine doesn’t mind helping his mother, but his vexed tone still makes him snicker against the speaker.

_“Oi, don’t laugh you bastard!”_

“Oh, poor you. Had to spend the day helping mom,” Kagami mocks, snickering. “What is it? Are your hands sore? You should ask your mom to kiss your booboos better.”

He earns a groan from Aomine, the sound coming from afar as if he pulled away from the phone.

 _“You’re disgusting,”_ comes his replies soon after, his flat tone causing Kagami to laugh out loud this time. _“And you don’t know anything, alright? I don’t know what comes over to her, but when she decides to take me grocery shopping it’s as if we are getting ready for an upcoming civil war. There’s no way the three of us here at home can eat the amount of food she bought.”_

Kagami snorts. “You say that and yet you’ll continue to come to my place and demand food instead of eating all the stuff she got,” Kagami half-heartedly complains, closing his eyes and remembering the countless meals he already made for the two of them. Aomine might be eating more at his apartment than in his own house at this point, and Kagami doesn’t know what to think of that.

He hears Aomine exhale softly, a sound he’s come to know as a sign that he’s smiling.

_“Can't help it. Once I got a taste of what you can do, I need to have more.”_

Kagami doesn’t reply straight away. _He can’t find his voice._ What does he mean by that, he asks himself, bringing a hand to his stomach and pressing down, feeling it fluttering to an almost painful degree.

Before he can come up with a response, Aomine continues, nonchalant:

_“Fuckin’ shame, really. Looks like I won’t get to taste your food for some time now.”_

“Huh?” Kagami frowns, taken aback by this sharp turn.

 _“… Your refrigerator…?”_ Aomine's tone is a mix of confusion and amusement. _“We’ll have to go back to Maji until it’s repaired, right?”_

Oh.

Oh, shit. _Right._

“Right!” Kagami exclaims, his voice a bit too high. He presses his back against the wall, trying to balance himself again. “But that’s not too bad, anyway. I’m sure they miss taking our orders.”

Aomine bursts out laughing, the sound rich and loud. Even over the phone, it reverberates across Kagami’s ribs, making his heart skip another beat and a grin to spread across his face.

 _“Sorry man but I don’t think any restaurant employee would miss serving you a pile of twenty or so burgers, two fries, and a shake,”_ Aomine says, and Kagami can hear mirth in his voice. I wish we had met today; he thinks to himself. _“They always looked dejected whenever we stepped in.”_

Kagami grins. “That’s too bad because they’ll have to deal with our asses again for a couple of days.”

 _“Yeah, seems like it,”_ Aomine says with a content sigh, the last note of his laughter. He shifts on his bed again, judging from the fabric ruffling in the background. _“But well, that’s it.”_

“That’s it…?” Kagami repeats, confused at the finality of his tone.

_“Yeah. I just wanted to check on you to know what the fuck you were doing.”_

“Wha— are you kidding me? I coulda studied for my exams instead of babbling with you!”

All that Kagami gets is a small grunt, and he knows that Aomine just shrugged like it was no big deal. Kagami presses his lips together, exasperated.

“Fucking hell… I have Japanese History next week and I don’t know shit,” Kagami groans, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I won’t have free afternoons if I fail. You know that, right?”

 _“Hmm…”_ Aomine hums softly. _“Sounds like a_ you _problem.”_

The fluttering Kagami had in his stomach a few moments ago is gone, and he’s sure that it was killed by the hornets which now buzz angrily inside.

“I’m hanging up.”

 _“Oi, wait! I have an option that can help you. Two, actually,”_ Aomine adds hurriedly, his voice mischievous and Kagami knows it can’t be any good.

“Oh yeah?”

 _“Yeah,”_ Aomine says, solemnly. He really should hang up— _“The first option is to call Tetsu and whine that your dumbass didn’t study at all and plead for him to be merciful and lend his time and patience to you.”_

Kagami scoffs. “Yeah, that shit won’t fly. He’ll tell our coach too, and she’ll have my head,” he grimaces, starting to realise that he's really in bad waters if he doesn't do well in the exam. “What’s the second option?”

_“Mhm, I’m glad you asked!”_

That’s the point where Kagami hangs up on Aomine’s face.

He thinks of it, but the way Aomine’s voice drops an octave sends a shiver down his spine that makes the hairs in his nape and arms stand on end. He catches his lower lip in between his teeth, frozen still, listening intently to Aomine’s voice rumble on the other side of the line.

 _“The second option is that I can help you study for your exam. I enjoy Japanese History, you know,”_ Aomine offers, carrying the conversation casually despite how his voice _sounds_. He is speaking close to the speaker too and for a moment, Kagami thinks he could almost feel the warmth of his breath against his neck.

Kagami scoffs – or tries to because it comes out more like a heavy grunt that almost dies in his throat – and replies, unaware that his voice also drops, as though they’re both sharing a secret:

“You? Good at a school subject? I’ll be damn—”

 _“But that, of course, comes at a price,”_ Aomine interrupts, unaffected by the jab.

Kagami is silent, interest grabbed at what will come next. Aomine must know that because he snickers softly before continuing:

_“You’ll have to kiss my booboos better from now on. And then some.”_

It is like when he was studying, Kagami’s reaction. He is stuck, trying to process what he just heard but too distracted by the increasing beating of his heart, his neck and face suddenly _too hot._

On the other side, Aomine is quiet for a moment too, but he then can’t contain himself and chuckles at Kagami’s prolonged silence, and he can clearly see the sly smirk plastered on his face.

Did he really—

Kagami breathes in, and he curses how the sound comes out so shaky, so affected.

“… Good night, Ahomine.”

_“Heh. Good night, Bakagami.”_

Kagami ends the call and the silence of his bedroom is invigorating. He lets out a long sigh. What in the ever-loving fuck was that?

“He needs to quit fucking with me…” he mutters, flumping on his bed with an arm over his eyes, his hand still grasping his phone probably a bit too tight.

Not a minute passes and it beeps, just once. A notification message for Kagami, who warily checks out what else Aomine is pestering him with.

_[I’ll finish early tomorrow. Meet ya at the court, yeah? Sweet dreams, princess!]_

Kagami reads and rereads the message, a weak smile spreading in his face. The prospect of avoiding and lying to him until Momoi-san’s surprise was done was one that was already sapping away at Kagami’s energy. He has no idea what to tell him tomorrow.

Kagami sighs defeated, but as he mentions to close LINE and put the phone aside, the app notifies him of previous unread messages of the same conversation, updated once his phone was connected again.

His eyes widen, remembering that Aomine mentioned of sending messages all day, and Kagami gingerly scrolls up.

_[Oi, Bakagami! Heads up: I won’t see you today. My mom is nagging me to go grocery shopping with her, so don’t cry alone in your bedroom aight?]_

He brushes off the weak jab and keeps on reading.

_[We found a new supermarket in Tsukiji. I would complain since I know we will stop over three more supermarkets, but hey! They make amazing unagi! Make me unagi next week!]_

_[I was waiting for her to pay and I deadass saw a kid drop his ice-cream, pick it up, and continue eating what was left. Reminded me of you.]_

_[I see how it is. Ignoring me, huh? Think of this when I inevitably leave your dumbass behind when I get escorted and you don’t. I won’t invite you to my huge mansion parties when I’m famous.]_

Kagami snorts. Aomine hates parties. They both do.

_[Serious, man. You good?]_

_[Aight, that’s it. When I come back, we will sit down and you’ll learn to drop this attitude of not paying attention to me.]_

Laughter bubbles up Kagami’s throat but he muffles it in his pillow, feeling his eyelids burn every time he blinks but he can’t help it, a comfortable warmth spreading across his body as he reads them. He thought of me today, he smiles as he keeps scrolling up.

_[I was starting to get mad at how long this whole ordeal was taking, but then an old man passed by carrying a dog in like, those shits that you put a baby in and then strap it on your chest. Like a kangaroo, yeah? So, I saw an old man kangarooing his dog and now all is well.]_

_[It actually looks fun_. _But sin_ _ce you don’t like dogs we can do that with like. Iguanas. Those are cool.]_

_[I am deeply, terribly upset at this silent treatment. I thought we were best bros. Unbelievable. I knew that you Americans were no good news.]_

_[Man, fucking hell. Are you alive over there?]_

_[We finished. I don’t want to go inside a supermarket ever again. This day was lame, I am tired, and I gotta go to school early tomorrow. What a pain.]_

_[Hope you had a good day, though.]_

This is the last, and Kagami stares at it for a long moment. His finger slides across the screen and he mentions to send something back to Aomine; to confirm their game. That yes, unagi is definitely fucking great. That no, you can't strap iguanas to your chest like babies. That his day was good but he still missed basketball with him–

And then he remembers. Momoi will be over tomorrow again, and the cake…

He presses his lips together and puts his phone away, rolling onto his stomach and sprawling his long limbs across the mattress.

It’ll be worth it, he thinks drowsily, burying his face into the pillow.

The surprise will go well, and I’ll get to see him again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kagami tries to help Satsuki bake a cake and survive her endless prying into his friendship with Aomine.

It would be lovely if the school allowed students to ride bicycles in the hallways.

Or, at least, to give her the sole privilege to ride a bicycle down the hallways whenever it was needed. Not only it would make up for her short legs and even shorter time, but she would get to blast the _hell_ out of the bell at the students to get out of her way.

“Please, please, _please_ don’t be there anymore!” Satsuki chants in between each breath, panting as she hurries down the long hallways of Tōō. “You were never one to stick around after practice. Don’t let today be different!”

Of all the years Satsuki tried to persuade Aomine to stay a bit after practice and socialise with the team a little better, it always failed. He didn’t even have the decency of having an excuse for it. He just plainly didn’t want to be around more than necessary. Thus, if today, of all days, he was at the gymnasium for some unfathomable reason when all she needed was him to be away, she would collapse.

She feels she’s close to collapsing, either way.

With exams on the horizon, entire groups of students can be seen cramming in all available spaces for the finals, their strained expressions buried in books and an edge to their voices as they discussed so-and-so subjects. Then, of course, the finals of the Inter-High are equally fast approaching, putting even more pressure on their team which is already inside a boiling pot, what with the new set of goals they adopted for the new year, a fresh, bone achingly demanding training program, and a new captain that has yet to earn his name amongst the other schools teams.

All of it combined was nothing short of an exhausting, daunting situation for her to deal with – both as their team manager and as a fellow student.

She sidesteps a few more students and turns left to the outdoor path that leads to the gymnasium. The panels above reflect the sunlight away from students and shield them from rain, but don’t prevent the breeze from blowing past and she grunts when a gust of wind blows her hair on her face and it catches on her dry lips.

“Ugh, please, not now!” Satsuki spits awkwardly, fumbling with her stray locks. She staggers the last few steps and presses her hands heavily against the double-doors handles, taking a moment to regain her breath and poise. “Just please… Give me this at least.”

The doors swing noisily on their hinges as they open and she immediately sets to scan the area, searching for the sight of the familiar crown of blue hair – or the loud yawns and childish complaining.

The bleachers at the far-end wall and on the second floor are empty. There are a couple of stray balls scattered around but their locker cart is already in the process of being refilled. Finally, the few first-years still around are cooling down on the other end, silently stretching their sore limbs.

And, most importantly, no sight of Aomine.

“Oh, good…” a sigh escapes from her lips, their corners curling into a relieved smile. “He’s not here.”

“Who’s not here?”

The voice comes suddenly from behind and Satsuki turns sharply, fully expecting to be met with an unlucky fate and be faced with Aomine no less.

Instead, she turns to find Wakamatsu who regards her with a puzzled look on his face and Sakurai, who cowers behind him and shifts awkwardly when her eyes drift to him.

“U-Uhm, s-sorry, Momoi-san. We didn’t mean to eavesdrop—” Sakurai begins to apologise but Wakamatsu cuts him short, turning to stare him down with an expression in a mix of aggravation and weariness.

“Sakurai, listen. I’ve gone way over my limit today. Save your apologies for the exams that will screw us over next week or you won’t live to them.”

To his credit, Sakurai doesn’t flinch at the dark scowl he receives, but still nods with a grimace.

Satsuki tilts her head to look at him better and smiles.

“Don’t worry about it, Ryou-kun. You weren’t eavesdropping!” she reassures him before turning back to Wakamatsu. “I was referring to Aomine-kun, of course.”

“ _Of course_ ,” there is bitterness in his voice and it looks like he’s holding back from rolling his eyes. Wakamatsu has gotten better at handling Aomine, just like Imayoshi said he would when he passed the torch last year, but tension still exists between them and arguments are a daily occurrence, even if recently only over trivial reasons. “He left after training was over. I’m surprised he even came,” he scoffs.

“Aomine-kun hasn’t skipped training so far this year,” Sakurai adds, stepping to Wakamatsu’s side. He’s carrying extra towels for the new members to use in the showers. “I wonder why the sudden change?”

Satsuki’s smile widens, thinking back to the day before.

_He wouldn’t dare. I’m making sure he goes to them._

“That’s a mystery for now, but let’s not look at a gift horse in the mouth!” she tuts.

“Right,” Wakamatsu nods, arching one eyebrow at her. “But why are you looking for him? It’s not like he would be here anyway. There a problem?”

He’s straight to the point.

Satsuki laughs, openly but weakly.

(Lately, everything in her feels a bit weaker. Perhaps she should join them during practice.

Or just sleep more.)

“No, not at all. I’m relieved that he isn’t here, actually.”

She sweeps her eyes around the gymnasium once more. The first years have gone to the showers after putting away the last balls, leaving it empty save for the three of them.

Satsuki’s eyes widen at the opportune moment and she turns to face Wakamatsu and Sakurai, the action so brusque it makes the shooting guard jolts back with a tiny cry.

“This is perfect! He’s not here and now we’re all by ourselves,” she says, her voice adopting a businesslike tone. “Could you guys do me a favour?”

Wakamatsu stammers, nonsensical noises coming out of his mouth to make up for Sakurai’s silent bewilderment.

“A favour…?” he parrots, trying to work around the words but only receiving another firm nod from Satsuki. She waits, looking at him with unwavering, intense, _gleaming_ eyes—

Wakamatsu averts his gaze and coughs, shifting his weight to another leg. Then, he uncrosses his arms and brings up a hand to his sweaty neck. “Uh— Yeah… Sure. What is it?”

Satsuki smiles. “Can you keep Aomine busy for a few days?”

She is also straight to the point and this takes a choked gasp out of Wakamatsu. By his side, Sakurai drops his face onto the heap of towels on his arms, picturing himself burying his head in a hole and escaping from this situation.

“I know, I know! I wish I could sit down and explain, but I have somewhere to go and I’m afraid I don’t have the time,” she throws a glance at the digital clock hanging on the adjacent wall and bites her lips. “But in sum, I’m preparing a surprise for Aomine’s birthday and I can’t have him finding out what I’m doing and where I’m going after school until the surprise is ready—”

“A surprise?” “His birthday?” they say in unison.

It’s unlike her, so unladylike, but she feels like rolling her eyes. Instead, she gives a sharp nod and steps forward, forming a circle (triangle?) and, dropping her voice to a whisper, she continues:

“Yes, a birthday surprise. And I’m sorry I can’t explain in detail right now, but it’s very important it goes right, so— please, could you guys help me?”

Sakurai is the first to agree. He’s curious about Satsuki planning something for their ace’s birthday, an event none on the team has experienced yet.

One of their missions as a team this year is to strengthen their team play, or, at the very least, incorporate more of it in their games going forward. Thus, in his mind, becoming a close-knit group of friends would come in handy.

He couldn’t be more excited about it, honestly.

Starting high school, Sakurai yearned to make good friends with his teammates, a wish that burned even more so when he found out that Teikō’s ace was joining their team, and hoped to support him and watch his legendary basketball up-close.

It was a short-lived thing, though. As electrifying as it was to watch Aomine Daiki steal the ball – regardless if from the adversary or his own teammates – and dribble it past all defenses and bring them overwhelming victory, nothing ever sparked joy in his dull, dark blue eyes.

Time didn’t improve matters either, and Sakurai was powerless to change anything but to accept the bitter philosophy of the team – a team united by their selfishness and barely recognisable as one but for their black-and-crimson jerseys. That icy feeling spread its tendrils into him and he’s ashamed to think how, a year back, he thought nothing would move them forward.

And for a time, that’s how things were. Until the Winter Cup came along.

He doesn’t know what happened, _what changed_ with their loss in the tournament, but something sparked a light in their core. It’s a rare, small flame, slowly but surely thawing the ice between them with each day, and Sakurai is keener than ever to help his teammates, keep it alive.

Thus, why he so promptly accepts to be in her plan.

But maybe this is not about the team-and-friendship building at all, Sakurai thinks, looking closely at Momoi’s expression. Her usual soft pink eyes sparkle something rare, and the sight of her jaw set so tightly as she waits for Wakamatsu’s response makes him think this is a lot more personal.

He turns to look at Wakamatsu, whose lips are pressed into a tight line. Perhaps at the thought of containing Aomine Daiki – and what that entails.

“Captain…” he pleads. “It’s only gonna be for a few days!” he turns to face Satsuki. “Aomine-kun’s birthday is coming up soon, isn’t it?”

“Yes! In four days!” Satsuki confirms eagerly and not taking her eyes from Wakamatsu, she raises pleading hands, the knuckled of her intertwined fingers pressed to her white chin. “Please, Wakamatsu-kun! I promise to repay you for whatever headache or problem this will cause!”

Wakamatsu stammers. The sound is kind of pathetic, but Sakurai would never tell him that.

(He also would never tell how much Wakamatsu blushes at her sudden proposal.)

Averting his eyes from the pink ones, Wakamatsu drops his gaze to his sneakers, as though the worn shoelaces will tell him what to do.

“Damn, what a mess…” he sighs, theatrically dragging a hand down his face. His response is obvious already, but Sakurai waits anyway. “Alright, sure! I’ll do it.” he finally agrees, giving a firm nod and squaring his shoulders.

Satsuki squeals, a wide grin spreading across her face as she bounces on her feet.

Wakamatsu, bless him, blushes even more. So much so that sweat glistens on his flushed neck.

“But you don’t need to worry about repaying anything, alright? I need to get sorted with that guy anyway,” Wakamatsu adds, his tone akin to someone trying to regain composure. “I have a feeling he’s not studying when I dismiss the team early.”

Satsuki laughs as she hoists her backpack better on her shoulders. She’s shifting from one foot to the other, an odd jig that Sakurai presumes it’s her getting ready to set off running. She assures that Aomine is certainly not studying at all, and her off-handedly tone makes Sakurai think she’s not worried about that. At least not yet.

Then her eyes brighten up and she looks at them with a dreamy smile.

“But hey, that works great! You could use this as an opportunity to pester him to study, you know? Breathe down his neck to make sure he won’t be hold-back from the team due to bad grades. If you get him to study in the afternoons you will help us both at the same time!” she cheerfully claps her hands. “It’s perfect!”

Sakurai pales. _Perfect?_ Sure, to her own ears it might sound like a solid and simple plan, _but Aomine…_

“Oh… B-But…” Sakurai can already feel sweat pooling on his brow. “But that’s…”

Satsuki cocks her head, her grip on her bag’s straps still tight. It looks like she’s just waiting for him to give his excuse so she can then easily rebuke it and set off and it only makes the words clump on his tongue, forming a ball that he cannot swallow or spit out.

For better or worse, it’s Wakamatsu’s bluntness that saves him.

“I’m sorry Momoi-san, but that’s some damn shitty idea.”

There’s a nasty frown on his brow, just as perplexed at what she proposed.

“Eh? How come?”

“Get Aomine to study? Listen, we promise to help you, but that’s— how are we to do that?!”

Satsuki, not to be stopped in her plans, offers a simple smile.

“If you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss will also gaze into you,” she recites calmly, and surely the hurry she had just seconds ago must have subsided just for the sweet time to recite some philosophy— “Just play his game. Aomine-kun will be nasty in the beginning, but don’t be afraid to pull some dirty moves on him. He’ll eventually lose steam.”

She explains so matter-of-factly that Sakurai and Wakamatsu can only stare, baffled.

Dirty moves? Lose steam? Have some mercy! Aomine’s sure to scald them on this ‘steam’ before he gives in and grabs a book, Sakurai laments to himself.

Satsuki tucks her hair behind her ears.

“Soon enough you’ll see that he relents at times. Plus, it’s time for him to get knocked down a few pegs, don’t you think?” she looks at them with a smirk and one raised eyebrow. There’s a beat of silence and, at last, Wakamatsu sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. She grins. “I know you guys will do just fine!”

And with that she thanks them both, gives each a pat on the arm and rushes out of the gymnasium with surprising speed, her long pink hair fluttering down her back.

“She’s fast…” Sakurai remarks in wonder, catching the last glimpse of her as she reaches the school’s main gates and turns right, disappearing.

Wakamatsu nods, saying nothing. Peering at him, Sakurai notices his attention is fixated on the gates, and the amber of his eyes glows softly as she was still there.

Then he groans, harsh and heated.

“Probably spent all her life running after that dipshit,” and the usual grimace is back on his face.

Sakurai frowns and fumbles with the towels to jab a finger in his side.

“Stop complaining. We said we will help!”

“And we will!” Wakamatsu shouts and his loud voice reverberates through the walls and up to the high ceiling. “But I’m still allowed to dislike Aomine.”

“You should try to improve your relationship with him, though,” Sakurai tuts, resuming the walk towards the locker rooms. “At least to be on neutral grounds?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Wakamatsu grumbles, the rubber sole of his sneakers squeaking on the polished floor as he follows by his side. He clicks his tongue, and Sakurai can _hear_ the eyeroll. “But he better get his head out of his ass and try too, you know?! I’m not as patient as Imayoshi was.”

“I believe he will,” Sakurai chuckles, turning his head to look at Wakamatsu with a hopeful smile. “Aomine-kun is— different this year, isn’t he? I think he is. Maybe he will… Chill out a bit.”

Wakamatsu gawks open-mouthed and Sakurai sweats, too self-conscious to speak something to save face. _What came over him to even say that?!_

But before he can come up with anything Wakamatsu bursts out laughing, boisterous and carefree.

“’Chill out’ you say! Ha! Fucking hell!” he snickers and Sakurai exhales. He’s so lucky. If it were Imayoshi he would _never_ let him live this down. “But yeah, true enough. Aomine’s changed. I hope he does chill out, as you say.”

Sakurai nods.

“And if everything goes well, then maybe things between you and Momoi-san can… change… too.”

It takes a few seconds for it to sink in. Then, as he expected, Sakurai hears a loud squeak as Wakamatsu halts in his stride by pressing his shoes hard against the polished floors, translating his shock loud and clear.

“Sakurai,” comes Wakamatsu growl. It’s low and so, so bad. “What did you—”

“N-Nothing!” he stammers, his voice breaking.

Sakurai really wants to be better friends with everybody, but he shouldn’t be throwing away his senses of survivability like this. _He’s in Tōō, for heaven’s sake!_

The scowl on Wakamatsu’s brow deepens and Sakurai stands there, holding the towels with shaky hands. They should be soaked wet by now with how much he’s sweated in the past five minutes.

But practice must be taking its toll on him, for Wakamatsu just groans and walks past him, pointedly ignoring Sakurai. He loudly opens the door to the locker room and quietly walks inside.

Sakurai, thanking all deities he knows, follows him.

The locker room is already empty as he enters, save for his captain who flops on a nearby bench with a grunt. Making sure the towels are not wrinkled, he heads to the cabinets.

Silence hangs in the air. Sakurai stores the extra towels and organises the cabinets with particular care and Wakamatsu stares at a dent in the metal locker before him, his eyes vacant and posture slouched.

On the other room, the showers, the sound of trickling water comes from a recently used showerhead, pattering against the tiles.

“So. What’s the plan?”

Sakurai turns and finds Wakamatsu fiddling with the strands of blonde hair that stuck to his sweaty forehead, a pensive expression on his face.

“… I don’t know,” he admits.

Wakamatsu clicks his tongue, stretching out his legs.

“We agreed to help her, but we don’t even know _how_ ,” he groans, running a hand through his blonde hair. The short, spiky strands stand straight even further, giving him a wild look that worries Sakurai. “He left not long ago. He might still be loitering around, yeah?”

Racking his brain, Sakurai remembers how oftentimes he had seen Aomine drop by the cafeteria to grab a snack before leaving the school.

“I think so. Maybe we could text him and—”

“Fuck that,” Wakamatsu deadpans. “We will hunt him down.”

The way he says it makes Sakurai rethink why he joined this specific basketball team.

Rather than choosing an elite school, he joined Tōō with a wish in his heart to be part of a young and ambitious team and help bring it glory; to have a spot in its history on the road to success. As a lifelong fan of basketball, nothing would make him happier than that.

He just never imagined this process would entail such… _Aggressive_ _extra activities_ , to say the least.

Because his team captain looks very much aggressive for a guy who just finished a heavy 3-hour long practice and is speaking of friendly talking to a fellow teammate.

(Sakurai prays there will be talking, that is.)

“U-Uh, what…?” it’s getting harder and harder for him to find his voice. His churning guts are probably holding it tight inside due to all this stress.

Wakamatsu nods and stands up. He stares at a lost point on the locker before him, seemingly trying to leave another dent in the metal with his eyes alone. Then, like a doll being controlled by strings, he turns to Sakurai and gives a smile with too many teeth.

“And when we find him you’re gonna talk to him.”

“What?”

“You’ll invite-slash-force him to study with you in the afternoons. Right after I dismiss the team from practice.”

“Wha—?!”

“And if he starts with attitude, you say you’re just worried about him getting bad grades and being held off from playing and all that shebang.”

“H-Hold on just now!” Sakurai exclaims, his voice echoing in the empty room and sounding louder and harsher than it ever is. He blushes, expecting a bad reaction from Wakamatsu, but he just looks at him unfazed. “I, uh…” he swipes his hair to the side, wishing he still had the towels as he feels sweat beads catch in his fingers. “Why would I invite him to study _with me?_ ”

Wakamatsu frowns.

“Why? Is that a bad plan?”

“No, that’s not it! It’s just—” the words die in his mouth. He breathes in, wets his lips, and rewords his sentence. “I just don’t see why it’s got to be me. He won’t listen to me.”

There’s a prolonged silence between them where Wakamatsu stands tall and regards him with studying eyes. Sakurai, on the other hand, feels his knees shake as stress builds up within him. He wants nothing more than to just sit down.

Then, as if he didn’t just spend a solid minute staring down a teammate, Wakamatsu blinks and raises one eyebrow.

“What are you saying? Aomine likes you.”

Sakurai sits down.

Wakamatsu smirks and ruffles Sakurai’s hair, amused by his lack of reaction – or the sheer silent shock of it, thereof.

“C’mon dude, of course he does! He shows he likes people by pestering and annoying them,” he begins to explain, but then stops abruptly. “Uh… Well, maybe in the first year he didn’t really care about you— but then again, he didn’t care about anything, so that’s not a deal-breaker. What I’m saying is,” Wakamatsu steps back and puts both hands on his hips. The action finally pulls Sakurai attention back to him, the meek brown eyes still apprehensive but attentive to what he says. “He will complain, whine, and we will have to push him just like Momoi said, but it’ll work out. Trust me, alright? We can do it.”

He finishes with a smile, a softer one this time, and although weakly, Sakurai returns it with one of his own.

Wakamatsu offers a hand and Sakurai grabs it, getting back up on his feet. His heart is a little calmer now, so he reckons things won’t be as bad as he was imagining them to be.

“Well... We should get going, then. The desks in the library are limited and there’s the books and everything else to arrange.”

“Sure. You do that. I’ll grab the ropes and the net.”

“—the what?!”

* * *

It’s hard to come across boys as polite and thoughtful as Kagami Taiga.

Well. Maybe “polite” and “thoughtful” aren’t exactly the right traits to describe who he is.

Kagami Taiga is loud, hot-headed, easily driven by emotions, and sometimes his Japanese is so crude that she wonders where (or with who) he learned it, but bless his golden heart for he tries, which makes it hard to get angry at him.

(And Satsuki knows for a fact that if it were anyone else they would be gawking at someone in her state – disaster of hair, sweaty face, disheveled school uniform, and carrying way too many bags – and think all sorts of bad things.)

But when they meet again at the station Kagami conceals his shock quite well and immediately takes some of her bags before they start making way to his apartment.

It’s not until they organised all ingredients on Kagami’s kitchen counter and arranged the bowls they will use that he asks, his tone casual but his red eyes very curious as he glances at her.

“You doing OK? You look beat,” his words were picked with care but when she turns to face him Kagami recoils. “I mean— we never hung out before so this is the first time I see you like this,” he explains, timidly. “If you want you can rest for a while. I can start with the batter.”

She smiles sadly. There was no way he wouldn’t have noticed it.

It’s unclear how and why it happens, but every argument and clash with Aomine had a ripple effect on her entire life structure and she still cannot cope with it, even after numerous times it’s happened.

She becomes inattentive at school, her managerial duties are lacking, and sleep is restless and only leaves her more fatigued with each day.

It’s distressing. The chaotic balance of keeping up with school life and basketball duties is one she’s been familiar with for so many years that it hardly affects her performance at this point.

And yet, add in a conflict with Aomine and it all falls apart, her previous solid life structure crumbling like a sandcastle.

Dammit. It’s so bad that, with time, it starts to affect her own appearance. As if she had an actual physical clash by how frizzy and unruly her hair has gotten and the pallor that spreads over her skin.

Satsuki is far from beaten. _She’s drained._

Her shoulders ache from sustaining her heavy backpack bouncing on her back as she ran through the streets, but she endures it as she just flips her hair aside and places both hands on her hips.

“What? Don’t want me around in your kitchen now, Chef Kagami?”

Kagami Taiga, as it appears, is just as fast to catch her teasing as someone else she knows.

“Quit that. I didn’t mean that.” He clicks his tongue in annoyance, turning back to place the bowls and mixer on the counter. His jaw clenches for a second, as though bitting on the words in the last second and swallowed them back with a bitter taste.

Probably a curse. It’s what Dai-chan would do in this situation, she thinks.

“I just wanna be sure you’re really up for this. The recipe isn’t easy, and you’ll need to focus on what you’re doing.”

He’s frowning at her, an action that she guesses is a warning and a light scold, but the way it makes his eyebrows’ forked tips shoot up just accentuates their shape and Satsuki giggles.

Before he can say anything else – or take offense –, she quickly replies:

“You’re so professional in the kitchen, Kagamin! That’s so cool!”

“—What?”

“I promise I’ll follow your every command and assist you to my best capabilities,” she says and moves her hands from her hips to the small of her back, waiting for his next move.

Kagami looks at her for a moment longer, but as she stands there, seemingly innocently, he just lets out a heavy sigh. He reaches for the apron hanging by the sink and ties it around his waist.

“Whatever then. Let’s get started.”

“Alright!” Satsuki cheers and immediately makes to grab the flour bag, but Kagami interrupts her by putting his larger hand down on the bag first and pushing it away.

“But first we need to speak about these ‘best capabilities’ you speak of, and what you mean by that,” he adds, a no-nonsense tone to his voice.

“Eh?” she frowns. “What do I mean by—”

“I don’t want to be rude but I’m already being, so…” Kagami prefaces, looking at her with scrutinising eyes. “I’ve been told you’re awful in the kitchen, far worse than my coach is. I want to know what you plan on doing here, in my kitchen. About this cake.”

Kagami is straight to the point too, but this time Satsuki likes it a little less. Still, he is right on target.

“I thought you’d find out…” she mutters with a sad laugh. “That is true, yes. Everyone tells me how bad I am in the kitchen. I even served the team whole lemons soaked in honey once—" the derisive scoff she expected doesn’t come, so she wets her lips and continues. “But I still want to do it! This was my idea after all. I know I’m not good but, even if only doing small things, I want to make this cake.”

Kagami doesn’t say anything, only looking at her with careful eyes.

“It’s important to me, so I will do my best.”

She holds his red gaze with her own, her gloss-coated lips pressed into a tight line and there is no determination as big as this one.

Kagami gives a lopsided smile, the corners of his eye wrinkling, and turns back to the counter where he arranges the bowls and ingredients between the two of them.

“Then let’s do this. But if it turns out bad, that’s fine too. A bad cake is good enough for Aomine,” he says with a snicker.

She grins mischievously, standing at attention by his side.

“You’re so mean, Kagamin.”

He hands her a small measure cup and the baking powder. They begin.

* * *

During most of her teenage years, Momoi Satsuki heard a lot about the famous “unusual methods” to start a friendship or how to strengthen one.

Sometimes she reads stories online about situations such as that; of how people from all sorts of backgrounds share their amusing experiences on how they grew close to others via unexpected ways, such as getting lost in a hiking trail together, being the last group at a rowing race to reach the end and bonding through their loss, or getting stuck in an elevator for hours and sharing whatever snacks they found in their bags until rescue arrived.

They all seemed to be unforgettable experiences and Satsuki thought it would be fun to make a new friend like that, too. In her mind, she pictured she and another girl walking up and down Shibuya all day in a quest to find some limited, luxury pair of shoes from a brand they both liked and bonding through sweaty foreheads and aching feet. They’d finish their day with each having a pair of said shoes and some parfait at a cute café.

To her, that would be a perfect experience; one worthy of writing down on her journal and share with others on an online forum.

But the things we can be sure about life are very few, such as the planet’s turns and the movements of the moon. Thus, Momoi Satsuki’s real experience with her long-dreamed “unusual bonding” took a very different turn, one that she couldn’t have dreamed of in a hundred blue moons, and now she wonders if she should even tell her mom about it.

“Uh, so…” she says, wiping her eyes and feeling them get crusty again from the flour that still clings to her fingers. “Are we done?”

Kagami tosses the last box of blueberries over his shoulder. It falls into the trash bin in a fluid, clean motion, piling atop other empty packages and too many eggshells.

“Yeah,” he replies but the words barely spill from his mouth and it sounds more like a long, heavy sigh. “For today, at least.”

She nods, leaning against the counter that she still isn’t done cleaning. “Good.”

That afternoon, her unusual bonding experience was instead with a six-point-three redhead guy who spent the first hour of the afternoon patiently helping her mix the ingredients together. After that, for the past three hours both him and her argued, bickered, and blew flour onto each other’s faces at tactical moments.

(There was enough flour in her hair to bake another cake. Damn Kagamin and his strategic vantage point.)

“I’m glad I bought more eggs than the recipe asked. You’re damn awful at cracking them.”

Kagami’s tone is neutral but the way he side-eyes her before turning back to the mixer he’s washing in the sink clearly means something else and she doesn’t like it one bit.

“Stop that!” complains Satsuki with a groan, jutting out her lower lip and turning to scrub the counter with more force than necessary. “I should practice by cracking them on your face!”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll never have you in my kitchen again!” Kagami scoffs, his voice regaining some of its rich tones. “After all this, I’ll only eat fast-food for the next few weeks. Stepping in here will bring back memories of this chaos and I won’t be able to cook anything.”

“Kagamin!” she whines and turns around, her hands coming down to her hips. “Now you’re just being mean. This whole ordeal wasn’t even that bad!”

“Oh, it _was_ an ordeal alright.”

_The cheek of this guy!_

“This cake will turn out great, just you watch. Accept it now or else I won’t let you have a piece of it or of the next cakes we bake together.”

Kagami snickers, shaking his head as he puts aside the clean mixer with the rest of the bowls.

“It will turn great, but I don’t know how much of it will be credited to the care you’re putting into it,” he says matter-of-factly and bursts out laughing at the way Satsuki rolls her eyes. Her face and hair are a complete mess of flour, “And you speak of next cakes? I’m not sure if I want to repeat this experience again if I’m being honest.”

Satsuki pauses at this remark and, with narrowed eyes, she gives a once-over at Kagami.

It’s almost jarring how, despite the comical mess on her face, her pink eyes are as sharp as ever, studying him with scrutiny. He stands still, uncertain of what’s coming and, quite honestly, on edge.

“Are you, though?” she finally asks, her tone deliberate, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Uh— What?” Kagami blinks. “Am I what?”

“Are you being honest?” Satsuki asks, cryptically.

He stays silent, stunned and confused on how to answer that.

Or if he should.

She gives a once-over at the kitchen counter and rubs away one last smudge of buttercream before handing back the cleaning cloth, which Kagami takes mindlessly.

“Kagamin, can I use your bathroom for a bit? I have a feeling that the flour in my head is starting to crust and I don’t want to deal with this in the train ride back home.”

Red eyes blink at her, once and twice. Then Kagami opens his mouth, but no words come out. Instead, he resorts to a simple nod and points to the corridor with his chin.

Satsuki thanks him and strides off, leaving the ace to dwell with the last dirty bowls and his thoughts.

* * *

Kagami’s apartment is huge for only one teenager guy.

It is only the second time she’s come to his place, but it’s still a surprise to see just how spacious are the living room and the kitchen, and the hallway he pointed out only leads to more rooms.

Does he get lonely here sometimes, she wonders?

In the hallway she finds a door to the right, closed, and one more at the end of it, open. The interior is obscured but she can make out the outline of a bed. She politely averts her eyes and skulks off to the first door. Giving it a timid push, she peeks inside and, sure enough, it’s the bathroom.

Maybe Kagami doesn’t care about things like that, or maybe because he doesn’t spend a lot of time in his apartment, what with daily practices and school, but when Satsuki walked in his apartment the first time she took note of how curiously bare it is, with only the essential furniture and nothing else that could give it a more homely essence. The bathroom follows suit: aside from the usual, there’s only a laundry basket, a mat by the black tinted glass shower box, and a toothbrush holder on the sink next to the bottle of liquid soap.

“He’s so neat…” she mutters in wonder. “Dai-chan could learn a thing or two from Kagamin!” then adds with a sniff, closing the door behind her with a quiet click.

Stepping before the mirror hanging above the sink, she looks at her reflection and grimaces; the gravity of her state is worse than she expected.

“I hope this will all be worth it.”

Or else all their work is for naught, and she will have to break down Dai-chan’s high walls in order to approach him again and restore their friendship, already dreading how difficult that would be.

In contrast with his usual nonchalant personality, Aomine had a tendency of shutting off people when he was annoyed by something or at somebody, even at a young age. Such behaviour was baffling when she first experienced it, for she’d imagined he would raise hell and be outward with his anger and frustrations, so being faced with his silent treatment the first time was a big surprise; a bad one.

It was extremely daunting to get him to talk when he was in such mood, stubborn beast as he's always been, and it had only taken a turn to the worse after Teikō.

(Everything and _everyone_ took a turn to the worse after Teikō.)

She seldom reminisced of those days, a bleak era of their lives as it was, but she can still recall the countless nights she went to bed fearing their friendship was on the brink of an end, unable to help him the way he needed.

Satsuki cringes at the bitter memory as she takes a piece of toilet paper and folds it in her hands.

“Don’t worry now. It will be fine,” she reassures herself, wetting the piece in the tap water and then pressing her thumb on it to squish away the excess. “He is a stubborn brat, but so am I when needed to be,” and starts to wipe off the flour and everything else that found its way to her face.

The frog incident on that summer trip long ago was a turning point in her life. Not only she realised how grossed out she was by them, but also how mad she could get at others for pressing her buttons.

After yelling at Aomine and storming back home, Satsuki spent the remaining of the week holed up in their country house playing with her toys during the day and watching TV with her grandma at night. Aomine had come by countless times looking for her. The first time she yelled at him from her bedroom’s window on the second floor and then had her mother intercept him all other times he came by and say anything to not let him play with her.

Naturally, her mother didn’t like her pettiness, and the excuses she came up with mirrored her disapproval at her daughter’s attitude, weak and flimsy as they were.

Bless him and curse him for Aomine has always been too sharp, and soon enough he caught on that she was avoiding him.

 _“Good!”_ Satsuki snapped when her mother told her so after his latest attempt. Her small hands were shaking as she tried to fix her dollhouse roof to no avail. _“I don’t wanna see his face again!”_

Her mother had scolded her endlessly, saying how he ‘did not mean to cause her harm’ and all that mumbo-jumbo she refused to listen.

She was also beginning to get irritated at her mother, she remembers with a tiny smile. She finishes cleaning her eyebrows and throws away the piece of toilet paper. ‘Mother didn’t get a frog to sit on her head! She will never understand!’ was her reasoning back then.

Wetting her hands, she now starts to run her fingers through her hair.

She was as stubborn as Aomine was, coming day after day looking for her, but she was determined to keep it up for much longer than him.

That’s what she thought, that is, until the weekend rolled in.

Not long after she woke up and had breakfast that it dawned on her that her schedule was completely messed up without his presence around. In the countryside town where they often traveled to, there used to be a fair at the city’s centre during the weekends to which they always went together. They played the games in the booths, filled their bellies with fresh, mustard-filled taiyaki, and then cooled down with mango popsicles under the shade of a tree.

However, that weekend would be the first one she wouldn’t go with him, and as soon as she realised it she immediately became downcast.

“I was such a dummy,” Satsuki laughs quietly, rubbing her fingers more forcefully against her scalp to get rid of the flour that encrusted there. She picks her nails to get rid of what comes off, washes it away under the tap, and checks her appearance once more. A waterdrop runs down her forehead and gets caught in her eyebrow.

“I spent all day laying on the floor, trying to read all my faerie tale books and basketball notes. Then I got angry, poked holes in the blank pages of my notebook, and tried to nap away my sullen mood.”

(Which also failed. Sadly, Aomine’s skill at sleeping wherever and whenever never rubbed off on her.)

Then, when she was close to asking her mother to take her to the fair, the window in her bedroom made a noise as something struck it. She brushed it off at first: it was normal for cicadas to bump against it in mid-flight. But then it happened again, the noise insistent and rhythmic, and she looked over just in time to watch a pebble striking the window glass pane.

In theory, she was supposed to march over there, yell at him to go away, and close the curtains. Instead, she scrambled to her feet and rushed to open it, sticking her head outside.

(Thankfully she was fast enough, else Aomine would’ve thrown another pebble and hit her square on the face. His aim was precise enough for that.)

And there he stood, just under the old tree, one arm still raised and blue eyes wide at seeing her again.

They stared at each other for a moment, like two strange cats who stumble upon each other and don’t know whether to brawl or have a conversation. Finally, Aomine dropped his arm and the pebble he had in hand.

 _“Uh… Hey, Satsuki,”_ Aomine had greeted, awkwardly, out of character. He was shifting on his feet, looking around him in an act that she now realises was him being self-conscious of an adult seeing him under her window like that.

 _“Come down here a sec.”_ he did not ask so much as he demanded, as if overlooking the fact that she had spent the last few days ignoring him.

 _“Why?”_ she wasn’t really feeling as cross as before, nor as determined to avoid him, but giving in easily wasn’t a trait of hers. _“What do you want?”_

 _“To go to the fair,”_ was all he said.

She said nothing, surveying him. He shifted again, and that’s when she noticed the box he had under his arm.

“ _I..._ _have something for you, too.”_

_“… Is it a frog?”_

_“N-No! Just— come down here already!”_

She could’ve ignored him and go back inside; shut her window to wordlessly tell him to go away and then go back to mop on the floor.

Instead, she rushed to grab her sandals and flew down the stairs.

“I couldn’t have won anyway,” Satsuki says with a sad smile, drying her hands on the towel. “I tried to, but my stubbornness dried off while his rushed like a wild river to find a way to me again.”

She gives a once-over at her reflection again, but her eyes are vague and don’t really see herself, her mind still lost in that memory.

There was no way that that cake wouldn’t be a success. No matter what, it would come out great and she would get a chance to speak with Aomine again. This time, her stubbornness _would_ pay off.

She blinks a few times and leans away from the mirror, not sparing another glance at herself. Her face was as clean as it could get, but her state would only go back to normal once matters with Aomine were solved (and the school exams are done and over.)

What her eyes do spot, on the other hand, is the toothbrush holder on the corner of the sink countertop. It makes her pause, pink gaze now fixated on the discreet piece of plastic.

Many people would reprimand her for that, saying how nosey that is, but it’s her nature at this point; if she doesn’t study all interesting details she sets her eyes on she would’ve never gotten the position as the team’s manager and be this close to her favourite sport, always gathering as much data as she can from their adversaries and help with tactics for her boys to take advantage over them in matches.

So, even outside the court, she can’t help and do it now.

Especially when it’s so curious to find two toothbrushes on Kagami’s bathroom countertop.

In on itself, there is nothing eye-catching about them: they rest side by side with a half-full tube of mint paste, but that’s not what got her attention.

“I didn’t know Kagamin had guests often…” Satsuki trails off as she studies them longer. For a moment she considers the spare toothbrush to be meant for his guests but the theory quickly debunks itself when, looking closer, she notices both look well used, which gives her new ideas.

There is no reason a teenage boy would use two different toothbrushes when the only difference between them is the colours – one being red, which she guesses is Kagamin’s, and the other dark blue –, so what’s the deal here?

She narrows her eyes, eyebrows scrunched together. The longer she looks at them the stranger they become and she just can’t drop the case for some reason.

Why does Kagamin have two, she ponders, when he lives all by himself and—

She pauses, the cogs in her head halting to a violent stop and sending up sparks that suddenly clear her mind.

Aomine-kun and Kagamin have been spending a lot of time together since last year, haven’t they?

Yes, she realises, her pink eyes going wide and lips parting. _Yes, they have_.

Dai-chan and Kagamin have been meeting up almost every day, and each day turned into weeks and weeks into months. She thinks back at countless times she’s seen Dai-chan leave after practice with a spring in his step, looking like the demanding practices didn’t put a dent in his energy. She always smile and shrugged it off, since ‘he was just going to play with Kagamin.’

Oh my, she thinks now, with heat going up to her cheeks and her heartbeat picking up pace. Oh, my stupid Dai-chan. Could it be that you and—

She shakes her head, trying to stop those thoughts from going any further than that and reaches for the door, fumbling with the knob with damp, clumsy hands. She complains under her breath until she finally opens it and steps out of the bathroom and into the hallway again.

‘Calm down, Satsuki,’ she tells herself, closing the door behind her but not moving from the spot. ‘There is no reason you should be overreacting over such a superficial thing. Kagamin is just thinking about his guests! He must invite his teammates over frequently and has spare toothbrushes after he cooks for them!’

Yes, that’s surely it! He really is just a very attentive, mindful friend. A good host, and… and…

She trails off, her gaze getting lost somewhere in the laminated floor before squeezing her eyes shut, bringing both hands to clasp her heated cheeks.

Who is she kidding? Kagami wouldn’t do that. He is kind – truly, he is! – but he is also a teenager guy and most of his mannerisms are far from being courteous enough to prepare ahead for his guests in case they don’t have a toothbrush.

It’s when she’s mulling over these thoughts, her back pressed against the bathroom door as she breathes in and out, that she notices a light coming from down the hallway.

She turns her head to that direction and sees that the bedroom once in darkness is now brighter, with a sliver of sunlight cutting a line on the mattress.

Perhaps Kagamin went there and pulled the curtains open while she was sorting herself?

She blinks curiously and tilts her head, trying to get a better view from where she stands. That might be so, she thinks, catching a glimpse of his schoolbag lying haphazardly on the floor and his basketball shoes neatly set at the foot of his bed.

Her gaze glides over to the bed and she stops, her eyes fixated on it.

On the bed, she notices, there’s a set of pillows.

Now, she wouldn’t think twice about it in another situation; one of her friends even likes to sleep with two pillows, saying it is much more comfortable for her neck, so it could be the same for Kagamin.

But, much like the toothbrushes, this isn’t entirely what catches her attention. They are side by side, but one is more creased and in an uneven angle than the other, as though it was the only one that was used the night before.

Even more, she notices with widening eyes as they take in the bigger picture that opens itself to her, is that she makes out a few clothes scattered across the mattress. She assumes them to be pajamas at first, judging from the unkempt bed that Kagami didn’t bother to make before leaving for school earlier today, but then there’s another pair of old sweatpants there.

 _Ugh._ Does Kagamin pile up his dirty clothes before doing laundry, she asks herself with a twinge of frustration rising to her chest. Why is it that boys are so messy with their clothes—

She interrupts herself when, absent-mindedly, she tilts her head even further and catches a glimpse of something that would make her jolt back if it weren’t for the door behind her.

Is that… Is that _Dai-chan’s training jacket?_

And sure enough, it is. It’s unmistakable. She’s seen him wear it many times for weekend practices at a court close to their school, and now, staring at the shiny black material gleaming in the sunlight that pours from the window, hanging on the bed’s frame, _on the side where the unused pillow rests_ , she wonders if that’s the side where he sleeps—

Her hands fly up to her face again, covering her eyes and shutting them close tightly.

‘Let’s stop right there, right there! Stop it, Satsuki!’ she tells herself, feeling her cheeks even hotter than before.

Petrified by her curiosity – if not downright privy, nosey attitude – and those… _thoughts…_ Satsuki scurries off back to the living room, her light steps betraying how the cogs in her head are back to full speed, grinding together and sending a flurry of sparks as they process what she’s just seen _but trying not to think about it at the same time._

But it seems so, so hard not to. She feels her heart hammering against her ribs, following the frantic rhythm of her thoughts. Oh, why is it so that she must always have such intense reactions—

A sudden clank makes her squeal, her reaction a bit too frightened for someone who was supposed to be just cleaning a cakey mess in her hair and reminiscing on the past and not snooping around.

“Oh shit, sorry,” Kagami begins to apologise but cuts himself short when he sees her frozen in place in the middle of his living room, eyes wide and tense expression. “U-Uh. I mean. Sorry…” he says again, chewing on his lower lip and at himself for always cursing in her presence. “Did you manage to sort yourself?”

“Mhm?” is her eloquent response. Kagami casts a meaningful look at her hair with an arched eyebrow, to which she starts, “Oh! Yes! Yes, I did. It was nothing bad.”

Satsuki laughs, the sound strained and wavering.

It is rare for her to be in situations like this nowadays; unable to speak, mind blank from words, and body shaking with nervousness. Of all times for it to happen, of course it must do when she’s around Dai-chan’s—

Kagami laughs, his coming out lighthearted and soft.

“Good. Once I had to deal with far worse – eggs and flour and the whole shebang, so I know how hard it is to clean up,” Kagami says with a quick smile, taking off his apron and hanging it up again.

That’s when she notices he’s still cooking even though they’ve decided to be done for the day. He also changed into a cleaner t-shirt than the last one, although equally black, and above all, Kagami is clearly baking something else for the mouth-watering smell wafting from the oven.

“Kagamin…” she says dreamily, stepping closer to peer over the divider between the kitchen and the living room. “Tell me what wonderful thing this is and promise you’ll give me some, please!”

All she receives is a tilt of his head, a quizzical look on his face, so she mentions the oven behind him with her chin.

“Oh, that!” he exclaims, darting his eyes to the oven for a quick look and then back to her, the motion strangely embarrassed. “Well, I uh—”

As content as she is with her current responsibilities, Satsuki wishes she had more time to hang out with friends. To go out with a few girlfriends and catch up on TV shows while snacking on sweets at some pricey café in Ginza or get back in contact with the other teams – gods know how much she longs to repair the friendship with the rest of the Generation –, because it’s at times like this that she realises how much there is to know about them that doesn’t fall in her data, and how badly she wants to know.

Kagami Taiga stands rigidly as though his limbs have turned into stone, but she doesn’t miss how his bright red eyes go to and fro, racing after something she cannot see. She assumes he’s figuring out a way how to answer, and that is something she didn’t know was a trait in him: she had come to understand when watching his games and the brief interactions they’ve had up until now that the Seirin Power Forward, much like his position, always pushed in and never stopped or recoiled. She quite respected how Kagami never balked at what others said either and, whenever she watched them play, was always amused by how he always seemed to have words ready on his tongue to retort anything thrown at him in his confrontations with Dai-chan during their one-on-ones.

That’s why his sudden silence is a fascinating new surprise and she watches him, intent on having a piece of his mind and of whatever is baking in the oven.

Kagami sucks his teeth and runs a hand through his hair. His wide shoulders rise slightly as he readies himself with armour that she doesn’t understand the need for. She meets his eyes and that seems to reel out the words, which come out from his throat in a strained sound:

“About that question— I uh… Have not been one hundred percent honest with you.”

… Well. Would you look at that. Satsuki never imagined Kagami Taiga to pull a sneaky on someone, but here she is, dumbstruck beyond belief.

Seeing the look on her face, Kagami quickly adds:

“Just hear me, OK? I wouldn’t take advantage of the situation like this. I promise! Never.” he pauses, breathing in. “But when you told me you and Aomine argued and how you wanted to bake this cake because he likes blueberries, I…”

His jaw tenses, struggling to continue. She stands still, patient.

“I… I took this as an opportunity to make something for him myself, too.”

Satsuki blinks. Kagami gulps.

“I was worried about this for a while, you know. Like, I wanted to cook something different for his birthday, but with the exams coming and practices for the Inter-High, I couldn’t focus to decide on what. But then you came out of nowhere with this plan for a surprise cake, and it gave me an idea... So… I took it and rode it out.”

With his confession and guilty out, Kagami sighs heavily in relief. And yet, Satsuki takes note of how he keeps his eyes away from her, his shoulders still tense and a slight frown on his lips. More and more she’s being presented with new facets of this guy that she didn’t dream of before and she’s so _amused._

“Kagamin…” she says, slowly. There’s a moment of silence where she watches Kagami fidget in his own kitchen before she bursts into laughter. “No wonder Dai-chan likes you so much. You’re such a dummy!”

She laughs harder still at how his funny eyebrows furrow deep on his brow before shooting up, as shocked at her reaction as she is by his confession.

“What—?” is all Kagami manages to say, mouth agape and eyes wide.

“You’re big dummy!” Satsuki repeats with laughter running free from her lips. It takes a moment for her to settle down, and by this point, Kagami has regained control of his jaw and is trying to scowl at her. Trying, for he seems aware of how red his face is and his lips quiver.

Satsuki lets out one last giggle and then shakes her head, the movement slow and patient.

“How long have you been worrying about this?” she asks, propping her elbows on the counter.

“It came to me when we were shopping for ingredients…” Kagami explains, still feeling angry and awkward at her reaction. Satsuki raises her brows and he continues, “I returned to one of the stores the next day and bought what I needed. Figured it would be rude to buy them alongside your stuff.”

Satsuki smiles at that, shaking her head again.

“You shouldn’t have worried, silly. I’m happy to hear you got inspired and came up with something of your own for him, too— Although you did say he wasn’t deserving of such treats?” Kagami offers a vague hand gesture as a response and she laughs. “Still! It’s nice that you’re doing something extra so there’s no need to fret about that…” she drawls, eyeing him up curiously. “Why did you, anyway?”

Kagami raises a hand to ruffle his hair, the red mane matching the subtle flush still adorning his face.

“It felt like I was stealing your idea, somehow. Because it’s… kinda similar? So, I thought ‘shit, when she finds out she’s gonna be mad’, but I was already set on doing it,” he says abashedly and Satsuki chuckles, mesmerized by the thoughtful kindness of this new side he shows her.

She opens her mouth to answer but Kagami gives a weak shrug and averts his eyes from her, his voice dropping to a slow, careful tone as he continues:

“I… also thought I shouldn’t be intruding on something so personal.”

From her parted lips escapes a choked gasp and in a very unladylike manner, Satsuki rears back and stares at Kagami, her thin eyebrows knitted together in a disgusted frown on her pale forehead.

“Oi! Slow down! I didn’t mean like _that_ ,” his hands reach out to appease her harsh reaction. “Aomine complained about the rumors to me, too. I know you don’t like ‘em either. I meant about intruding on your friendship conflict with him.”

She blinks, staring at him as she considers his words. He holds her gaze steadily and that assures her. She steps closer again, a pout still on her lips.

“… What do you mean?”

Kagami shrugs, taking a plate and a few napkins out of a cabinet and setting them on the counter before walking to his fridge, nonchalant to the topic he started.

“I mean that arguments with friends suck. Fixing them even more so. I saw how much you were worrying about getting the cake right and patching up with Aomine, so if on the day of your surprise I came outta nowhere with my own stuff it would be—”

He pauses, seeming to consider his next words, but then a crease forms on his brow and slowly, he says:

“Well, forgive me for saying it like this but it would be a downright dick move if I did that.”

He concludes and starts to rummage through his fridge.

Satsuki smiles. Despite his crude words and brute edges, Kagami’s honesty and kindness are so touching that, after so many days of being stuck in a pit of gloom and stress, her eyes immediately start watering.

She pats her cheeks, not wanting to cry in front of him, and when he turns with a carton of milk and two glasses in his hands she beams.

“Kagamin… You’re so kind!”

He clumsily puts them down on the counter at the remark, the glasses tinkling noisily, and she giggles before continuing:

“Thank you for being so thoughtful about Dai-chan and I like that,” she says, playing with her unpainted nails. “I’m a little nervous, being honest myself. About the cake and talking to him again… This isn’t the first time we fight and won’t be the last either, but you make me feel it will be alright so I’m grateful you’re here, helping me!”

Satsuki smiles brightly and Kagami can’t help but smile himself, his chest swelling with happiness at being so openly, kindly appreciated. He chuckles, filling the glasses for them.

“Always glad to help—"

Then she adds, unfazed:

“I’m grateful for you being with Aomine-kun, too.”

And those are the words that break the camel’s back.

Satsuki squeals and jolts back as Kagami lose the grip around the glass and of himself. It tumbles, spilling milk across the counter.

“Fucking h—” Kagami bites the curse, trying to stop the milk from spilling off the edge and onto the floor. Satsuki rushes into the kitchen and takes the glass away from the mess before fetching the napkins and helping him clean it.

“Sorry about that…” he mutters in embarrassment, but Satsuki just gives a smile and a dismissive wave of her hand. “But— what do you mean by that?”

“Mhm?”

“Just now,” he repeats, wetting his lips. “'For being with Aomine'…?”

What was supposed to be a subtle question comes out blatantly eager instead and the intensity of his words is so strong that Kagami feels the urge to cover his face with his hands; aware that if even he heard it Momoi obviously did too, keen as she is.

He doesn’t know when it started, but for a while now every time his thoughts drifted to Aomine and the time they spend together and he didn’t catch himself, they would stray to new, wild waters. It was like fast floods, and it didn’t take much time at all for them to pull him into their depths and leave him _breathless_.

Even when he shook them off he remained flustered for hours, with brief flashbacks of the scenarios they conjured sending shivers up and down his body.

He doesn’t know when it started - when his thoughts about Aomine started to divert like this, but he can’t deny that he’s started to wonder what would happen if he just leaped headfirst into those new waters; both nervous at what could change but so, so enticed to explore that new sensation meant.

But now having Momoi Satsuki around and talking about Aomine with her seems to have cranked it up to a thousand levels and he’s barely keeping balance around her, as though he’s on top of a tsunami that’s about to crash. Simple words coming from her are enough to tip him off, much like him tipping his glass, and he wants nothing more right now but to press his forehead against the wall and curse himself.

Rather than doing any of that though, Kagami sets his jaw and tries to maintain a semblance of casualness on his face. He watches Satsuki throw away the moist napkins in the trash bin and wipe her hands on a towel, the movement slow – _deliberate_ – as she looks at him.

“I meant just that…?” Satsuki arches one thin eyebrow. “I’m happy you two became such good friends.”

_Oh._

“Oh!” Kagami exclaims with a wavering, nervous smile spreading on his lips. “Y-Yeah… Don’t mind that,” he stammers, washing his glass before _carefully_ filling it again. “Playing ball with him every day is great— like, it’s fucking awesome. But when he starts pestering me I sometimes regret having left my guard down around him all those months ago. Aomine can be mad annoying.”

Satsuki giggles and Kagami exhales.

Shit, he needs to _calm down_. There is no reason he should be getting so self-conscious in her presence. If he were playing right now and this girl was sitting just meters away, watching his every move with those sharp eyes of hers, then that would be a reason.

But right now they’re just drinking milk in his kitchen while he waits for what he just made to finish baking, his whole apartment filled with the tantalizing smell of freshly made food. He can’t deny that he’s eager to see how they turned out after long, fruitless weeks trying to decide what to make for the occasion.

He also wants to give her some and know what she thinks so she will _stop_ _following his every fucking move._

“What is it now?” he blurts out, voice rising with anger and embarrassment.

Satsuki is unaffected by his outburst and just looks at him a few seconds longer before her pink lips curl into a slow smile, one that confuses him even further.

“Nothing, Kagamin. Just watching you do your thing in the kitchen. It’s fun!”

Her voice is light and melodic as she sways on her feet, but she cannot hide her sharp gaze and the way she meticulously studies him, so Kagami says nothing and waits.

It takes a moment as Satsuki takes a tentative sip from her glass of milk. She considers it, decides to add some sugar and, while stirring with a spoon, her words come with a gentle smile:

“I can see why he’s become so drawn to you.”

_… What?_

Kagami stutters, his heart beating faster inside his chest. What do you mean by that? Did Aomine tell anything about me to you? Does he—

“But you know! You’re right,” she continues, unaware that what she’s just said isn’t _a big deal_ , and takes another sip, her expression pensive. “Aomine-kun can be pretty annoying, in that you’re right. He acts like a little kid!”

Kagami blinks, almost feeling dizzy at the brief but clear insinuation she’s made and now the abrupt change of topic. He isn’t used to this at all, but it’s best to try and keep up with her rather than get a hold of her relentless pace.

Satsuki taps the glass with her nails, a smile playing on her lips.

“He’s always been like this, and it often got him in trouble when he was little. One day, even, he put a frog on my head!”

“A frog?”

“A huge frog!” she emphasizes, her voice rising. “We were on a summer trip with our families to this small countryside town and one afternoon, while we were picking blueberries, he makes me turn around only to put a frog he found in the bushes on my head,” she pauses, scrunching her nose, and then looks up at him with heated eyes. “On my head!”

“On your head,” Kagami nods solemnly.

“So— I marched back home, told him I never wanted to see him again and slammed my door on his face. That was our first serious fight,” Satsuki finishes with a pout, gripping her glass a little too hard. Kagami watches her knuckles go white and asks:

“What did you do, then?”

“Mhm?”

“If that was your first fight, what did you do?” he clarifies. “Maybe thinking back to this fight could help you now?”

“Oh… Well, I—” she stutters. There’s no way she’d tell him she sulked on her bedroom, even if she was only a child back then. “I didn't do anything. It was Aomine who came by my house to apologise, actually.”

“—What? He did?! I’ll be damned… And how did it go?” and just like that, Kagami’s curiosity is immediately picked.

“He waited under an old tree in my backyard and had this huge box under one arm, you see. So, when I walked over, Aomine-kun just pushed it onto my arms and told me to ‘hurry up and open it’” she reenacts with an exaggerated pitch that makes Kagami’s lip curl in amusement. “Didn’t even explain anything!”

He snorts. “'Course he didn’t.”

“But when I opened it…” she drawls, going down memory lane and back to that evening all those years ago. She smiles, a tiny one that reaches her eyes and makes them sparkle with joy, and when she speaks, her voice is so soft she barely hears it herself. “There was a clock inside.”

What follows is silence and she’s unbothered by it, lost in reveries. It had been a long time since she last thought about that day, but today it is an all-consuming memory and nostalgia swells in her chest.

Sharing it with somebody else seems to make it even more vivid, too, and for a moment she thinks she can even smell the fragrant, sweet blueberries they had picked that day—

The sudden shrill of the oven alarm snaps her back to the present. Kagami turns it off and opens it to peer inside, and from the minute gap wafts out the most delectable aroma she’s felt the entire week, filling her nose and taunting her stomach.

Kagami, however, decides to leave whatever it is inside for a moment longer for he turns back to her with a baffled expression on his face.

“A clock…?” he repeats, incredulous. “He gave you a clock?”

“Y-Yeah…” Satsuki nods, embarrassed. She takes a long gulp of milk, trying to hide her embarrassment but the weight of questioning red eyes doesn’t shift. She finishes her glass with a satisfied exhale and adds, “But it wasn’t a simple clock! It was a Cinnamoroll clock! Special edition!”

Her answer doesn’t seem any more helpful to Kagami by how he furrows his eyebrows.

“Cinna…?”

“Cinnamoroll. From Sanrio! I love him! He’s my favourite character since ever and Aomine-kun knew that, so he got me the clock,” Satsuki explains further still, feeling a tad defensive of her beloved character and the way Kagami is looking at her. “It is strange, I know, but I understood that that was Aomine-kun apologising to me, so I accepted it and we went to the fair together… So, yes! He is annoying, even in the way he apologises, but I realise now that he’s only like that to people he likes.”

She concludes with a smile. Then she stops and blinks, her thin eyebrows knitting together.

“But putting a frog on my head is definitely too far!” she pouts. “Thankfully he understood that from that day on he would have to think twice before pulling another schtick on me and— Kagamin?” she tilts her head, noticing the absent-minded look on his face. “Hey, Kagamin…?”

Her callings to his name go unheard and Kagami stands motionless, arms crossed and a crease in between his eyebrows. He suddenly finds a noteworthy event from weeks ago plastered on his mind, long after he’s forgotten about it. Something about it rings a bell, but the melody it creates is as unclear as it was before and he cannot understand its meaning.

It started simple. He and Aomine planned to go to a store they both liked, Aomine wanting to check on the new stock of imported shoes to add to his collection and Kagami needing new compression tights. It was an ordinary day and nothing deviated from the usual things they did when they go out together.

It was after they had lunch and were on their way back to the station, however, that something most unusual happened.

Kagami has no recollection of what they were talking about – their training routines at school, perhaps –, but he still remembers how Aomine suddenly halted in the middle of the sidewalk, so brusquely that Kagami stumbled before he could stand next to him again. He meant to ask what happened until he saw the look on Aomine’s face.

His blue eyes were fixated on something in the distance with such laser-focus attention that it caught Kagami by surprise and, rather than pulling Aomine aside and make space for others on the sidewalk, he followed his gaze with his own, curious to see what it was that got Aomine’s attention.

The store was just across the street, with big pink ribbons and a white, blank-faced cat. A crowd of teenage girls was packed together at the entrance, boisterous in their excitement as they took photos at lightning speed of something displayed in the main showcase.

If it wasn’t for the character standing vigil at the entrance Kagami wouldn’t have any idea what kind of store that was. Still, the fact that Aomine had stopped to stare at it was curious. He glanced back at him, finding him still wearing the same look in his face.

Kagami didn’t know how else to ask it, so he just did:

_“Do you wanna go there?”_

He ignored the small jump his heart gave and waited, intently watching for Aomine’s reaction.

It took a second too long to come, blue eyes blinking a few times before Aomine turned his head back to him, meeting his red ones.

_“What?”_

_“It’s still early. If you want to we can stop by the store before we go back home.”_

There are three wild things in the world: the first, the whole animal kingdom. The second, the Wild West. The third, goddamn, was the leap his heart took before plummeting to his gut, sending sparks of shivers up Kagami’s back at the way Aomine _looked at him._

His blue eyes widened (and Kagami swears they became even bluer) before Aomine averted from his. He brought up his free hand but then seemed to not know what to do with it, so he just switched the bag he was carrying to it and shifted on his feet.

Then he looked at him again and Kagami was struck at the alien, mesmerizing way Aomine’s expression shifted between embarrassment and annoyance, clearly trying to say something but somehow unable to do it.

(Kagami still doesn’t know how to explain it, but the way Aomine’s eyes were sparkling with the words he wouldn’t say was… _beautiful_.)

 _“Aomine?”_ he had whispered, not entirely sure why. _“Are you alright?”_

 _“Yeah. Yeah, I am,”_ Aomine grunted. _“And no, I don’t want to go there.”_

It could’ve been just that, but they still didn’t move. People walked around them and grumbling how they were obstructing the way but they didn’t care. Kagami knew Aomine still had something else to say and he waited patiently for it to come, watching him dart his eyes at the store and everything else around him.

At last, Aomine turned to face him again. His expression was steadier, if not a bit abashed when he asked:

_“Do you— can you see what’s written there? On the signs hanging at the entrance?”_

Kagami tried to but the group of teens, the distance, and cars driving by incessantly didn’t make it easy for him. The only thing he got to see was “special”, and he said as much.

Aomine nodded, sharp and curt, and then switching the bag between hands again, he gave a weak shrug and grabbed Kagami’s elbow, mentioning him to start walking again.

And just like that – whatever _that_ was –, it was over. They resumed their way to the station, effortlessly picking up the past topic of conversation like nothing unusual had happened.

But… _it did._

And it’s strange, now thinking about it, how quickly he forgot about it. He shoved that unusual occurrence to the back of his mind as soon as they were back, and It’s only when Satsuki regaled the frog-clock incident that it came back to him.

I wonder, he thinks to himself, if Aomine went back there and—

“Kagami Taiga!” comes Satsuki's high-pitched scream right before she slaps his chest with a dishcloth.

“What the— dude!” he protests, stepping away from her and snatching the cloth from her hand with a glare. “What the hell?!”

“Don’t ‘dude’ me! You were daydreaming and ignoring me all this time!” she scolds, crossing her arms. “Don’t you know that—"

She begins a long tirade of not listening to people and other rude behaviours and Kagami sighs.

He opens the oven door, folds the dishcloth and, using it as a makeshift mitten, grabs the tray and places it on the sink. The metal is hot and it hisses when in contact with the damp stone. Kagami smiles, admiring how they’ve come out. Surely, he thinks, Aomine will be blown away by these—

“Kagamin!” Satsuki brings him back again with a hiss, one even more heated than the tray. “What is the problem now?”

“Problem?” he repeats. “There is no problem.”

“Then what was that just now?” she presses. “That look! You looked all distracted and then serious all of sudden and…” she drawls, eyeing him up. “Were you thinking about—”

Kagami, nerve-wracked after having her pushing his buttons the whole day, can’t have her go any further than this. Above all, he has a gut feeling that what happened a week ago between him and Aomine in Tokyo could be meaningful in a way or another, and he cannot let her pry this from him.

Thus, smooth as he is, he grabs Satsuki by the shoulders and pulls her to stand by him at the sink, cutting her off abruptly.

“The muffins, of course!” Kagami says, giving her an ample view of the tray of freshly baked muffins. “I told you how I was unsure of what to do for his birthday, yeah? Well, I decided to make muffins. Thought it would be a good match with your cake. These are only a test so I could have your take on them.”

Satsuki is silent, staring with wide eyes at the few muffins tucked in their tins. They are unlike the overly decorated ones she finds in shops, chock-full of summer fruits or coated in chocolate syrup and shavings. The muffins Kagami baked are of a rich brown, their tops covered in flattering cracks, and sporting the biggest, most appetising splatters of blue—

“Are those… blueberries?” she asks, her lips parted in amazement and hunger.

Kagami nods but she doesn’t see it, her attention centered on them alone.

“I used the leftovers from the cake. I thought of making savoury ones in the beginning but I already have something for that, and since he likes them…” Kagami trails off, a smile plastered on his lips.

With a carefulness that hypnotizes her, Satsuki watches him pluck two out of the tray and put them on a dish. There’s nothing spectacular about the way he does it, but she audibly gasps.

“They look perfect!” she sings, clapping her hands and stars shining in her eyes. They are plain, with no icing or colourful decors, and yet they are the most delectable looking muffins she’s ever laid eyes upon and no fancy bakery could dispute with her about that. “Can I have one, Kagamin? Oh, please! Can I?!”

Kagami theatrically steps aside and mentions her to go ahead.

It’s with a relief that he watches her grab one and rotate it in her fingers, studying each angle with close attention as to decide where to start first, her mind finally away from topics he would rather not discuss.

If what he speculates is correct then it’s better to keep it away from her. He can’t be sure, thrust into this situation abruptly and with no knowledge of how things work between them, but from everything she’s told him and the curious incident with Aomine from weeks ago, well…

He could be wrong, but Momoi might not be the only one getting a surprise ready.

“So?” Kagami eagerly asks. Satsuki’s eyes are closed as she thoughtfully chews on the bite she took and he can’t help but chuckle at the way she stands there, holding the muffin as if a priestess would with the Golden Apple. “Tell me the verdict. Should I make these for the surprise, too?”

It takes her a moment to answer, rotating the muffin once more in her fingers. At last, she swallows and opens her eyes. First, she silently looks at him with a blank stare, then turns to the half-bitten muffin and the gooey, blue filling in its interior.

She stares with unreadable eyes and Kagami is starting to worry. Maybe something is amiss with the recipe he used (and it _has_ been a while since he last baked sweets), but then Satsuki abruptly takes another vigorous bite, bigger than the first one, and munches with a voracity that startles him.

“This…” Satsuki prefaces, covering her full mouth as she speaks. “Is the best… _The best_ muffin I have ever had! In my entire life! It’s perfect!”

Her voice wavers, overwhelmed by emotions, but Kagami does nothing but watch her reach for her empty glass and refill with more milk, not missing how she eyes the other muffin on the dish.

Kagami grins, proud of his work and relieved at her approval.

(Now he can’t wait to have Aomine try them, too.)

“I’m happy to hear you like ‘em.”

“You definitely need to make these for the surprise! Do you hear me? Make a whole batch!”

“Will do.”

Satsuki pauses to swallows. “And, Kagamin… Can I have the other one as well? To take home?”

Kagami laughs. “Yeah, sure. Knock yourself out.”

“Thank you!”

“I’m still making teriyaki burgers for the day as well,” he adds after she finishes her first muffin, taking a paper towel and giving it to her so she can wrap the other muffin in it.

“Oh?” she looks up at him. “Teriyaki burgers?”

“They’re his favourites,” she knows they are, but that coming from him only picks her curiosity even more. “Aomine always orders them when we go to Maji, but when I said their recipe wasn’t that good he dared me to do better,” Kagami says with laughter; a resounding, rich sound that rumbles in his chest and makes his wide shoulders shake. “And I damn well did.”

Satsuki hums. “Is that how you started to make food for him?”

“Yeah,” he says and the sparkle she sees in his eyes is astonishing. “The first time he came over was exactly for that. Dumbass thought it would be hilarious to make fun of me and my food under my roof,” he snorts, his gaze lost somewhere in the tiles as a grin spreads on his lips. She wonders if he knows the look that lights upon his face whenever he talks about his time together with Aomine-kun. “But I shut him down even before they were done. As soon as I started to grill the meat he walked over, glued himself to the counter, and watched me with eyes the size of basketballs.”

Satsuki giggles. “How predictable of him.”

“When he took his first bite he froze, mouth full and burger still in hands. I really wanted to say, ‘I told you so’, but I wanted to see what he would do next.”

She slightly tilts her head forward, looking at him expectantly.

“Then…?”

“Then, after like, a full minute, he swallowed and said ‘this is my new religion’” Kagami relates with an amused roll of the eyes. “He had a dumb look on his face as he ravaged the burger and didn’t stop until he was done—” he turns to her with a wide, mischievous smirk that crinkles the corner of his eyes. “Just like you!”

“What— me?” she parrots, the magic of his narration over. “Hey! He and I are nothing like—”

“You inhaled that muffin like you were a vacuum, Momoi-san,” red rises to her cheeks and he laughs. “You even had the same epiphany as he did.”

 _A vacuum_ … The gall of this guy!

Satsuki turns up her nose with a grunt, childishly crossing her arms high over her chest.

“Aren’t you a cocky one, Kagami Taiga?” she jabs. “I’m just hungry after a long day of work. That’s why I found it so good! On his birthday I will properly tell you what I think of it and then—”

Kagami turns a deaf ear to yet another long tirade, amused at how similar those two are. Even the fake denial, he thinks, watching as she carefully puts the muffin wrapped in paper towel inside her purse all while going incessantly about his ‘attitude’, is just like Aomine’s.

He cuts her off by pointing out the mess of blueberry paste around her mouth and earns another weak slap on his arm for his audacity.

Those two sure are from the same cut.

* * *

Having given her seat to a lady carrying a small child, Satsuki stands on the mildly crowded all-female subway train on the way back home, listening to two elderly women chattering about their grandkids.

From the little she eavesdrops on their conversation (the daily havocs the youngest kids cause and of which they must deal with) she’s made up her mind she won’t have children.

She already has her hands full with Aomine and the other boys, and their antics are quite enough.

She also has her hands full of bags; more ingredients to keep in the fridge and a few more muffins Kagami insisted she took home (while ignoring her embarrassed protests, shoving them in her bag which he held high above her head and out of range.)

Letting out a heavy sigh, she fumbles with them until they’re neatly stacked in between her feet on the floor.

The subway stops at a station, more people walk in, and she’s squeezed closer to the sleeping girl seated in front of her. With a grunt and an awkward twist of the arm, Satsuki catches hold of her satchel and fishes her phone out. She swipes her thumb over the screen and it lights up, her tired mind looking for idle entertainment for the tedious ride.

The first thing she finds is a blinking notification for a new message. Opening LINE, it shows that there is a brand-new conversation with Wakamatsu.

She perks up and opens it, curious at the unforeseen contact with him.

The first bubble contains a photo and she recognises it to be the school’s library. It was taken from behind a bookshelf, as though Wakamatsu was hiding behind it.

A few steps from it, seated at a table together, are Aomine and Sakurai.

Sakurai looks focused on a book, a finger pointed at something in the page and mouth open as he seems to be explaining it. Aomine, on the other hand, sits across him with his chin propped on his hand and a bored expression on his face, a mechanical pencil in a loose hold in his other hand.

The second bubble reads as follow:

_[It was nasty to get a hold of Aomine, but Ryou won him over with his charismatic smile and nervous, epileptic trembling. The evil has been defeated.]_

And below it, a sticker of Doraemon giving the ‘OK’ sign.

Satsuki muffles a giggle behind a hand.

“Wakamatsu-kun likes Doraemon..?” her voice is light with awe, and when she opens his profile she can’t help but let out her restrained laugh.

In the picture, he wears a black jacket and the usual scowl on his face, absolutely nothing in him giving off the idea that he likes the robot cat.

“Oh, that’s so cute!” she coos with laughter and her voice pulls the sleeping girl out of her nap.

She taps open the photo one more time, smiling at the sight of Sakurai and Aomine studying together in the library.

Earlier today she left them all by themselves to figure out what to do with Aomine, not entirely certain it would work. In hindsight, she shouldn’t be trusting people to deal with Aomine out of the blue and without proper instructions, but they somehow did it and the result is better than what she imagined.

Seeing how Wakamatsu had to take the photo from an undisclosed corner as to not be seen, however, she wagers their plan involved a fair amount of quarreling and shoving around.

If they even had a plan, that is.

Doing her best to keep her balance in the moving subway, she clumsily opens the phone’s keypad. Firstly, she chooses a Gudetama sticker of him lying in his yolk in a beach pose and an ‘Aw yeah~’ above him. Then, she replies:

_[You did it, guys!!! I’m sorry for pushing this on you out of nowhere, but I’m sooo happy you’re giving me a hand!]_

_[He’s also getting to study while at it, too, so you went far beyond what I requested. Thank you, Wakamatsu-kun! Thank you so much! And tell Sakurai-kun he’s a champ!]_

Red rushes to her cheeks, embarrassed at her chosen language with the guy. She only ever spoke with Imayoshi at length via texts while the rest of the team preferred to talk in a group chat, so now having a private conversation with Wakamatsu feels somewhat… awkward.

“Stop it, Satsuki!” she reprimands herself, sending the message and shoving her phone back inside her bag without waiting for a reply. “He’s the captain. Of course you’d text him sooner or later! And you did ask for his help…” and she goes on, unaware of the dark glare the now awake girl gives her after having her sleep interrupted.

As the nightlife in Tokyo starts blossoming, showing its colours with bright neon signs and eccentric fashion, the subway speeds through the tracks right below it, keeping up with the frantic pace of the city and welcoming more and more passengers at each station.

But Satsuki hardly pays any attention to it all, staring at her reflection on the window as endless dark tunnels rush past outside. She vaguely notes the slump on her shoulders and the tousled look of her hair, but the voices of the two chattering elderly ladies and the gentle movements of the train lull her to quiet, absent-minded state, the laborious tasks of today catching up to her at last.

There’s a burning sensation behind her eyelids with each blink and it only makes it harder for her to keep them open, at times keeping them closed until someone bumps into her and when they announce the stations they stop at.

All she wants it to have Dai-chan back and for this week to be over. She’s so, _so_ tired.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tell you what: I shouldn't have written such plot-driven fanfic like this one after ages of not writing shit. It's terribly hard and I'm struggling like hell. "What are you saying? This is such a simple concept!" you might be asking. Indeed, it is. However, my dumbass has to take even the simplest things in existence and contort it into the most convoluted mess in this whole wide world. Thus, why it took me so long to post this one.
> 
> Also, this story was supposed to only have 2 chapters, but as you can imagine things got out of hand and I had to break it in the middle. The good news is that I finished writing it all. The bad news is that I'm having a Bad Time revising it, but I'm stubborn and I will post the third and final chapter this month still!
> 
> I just hope this is in any shape or form entertaining to you guys who are reading it because this gal over here is having a hellish time lol
> 
> Thank you for dropping by again and I'll see you in the next one!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The long-awaited day finally comes, and things get a little intense before they get good.
> 
> (And later, Wakamatsu also grows some balls and takes a step forward)

It’s not usual for her to lose track of time, so when Satsuki comes to realise that four days have passed and Aomine’s birthday is finally here, she’s can’t help but feel— anxiety.

She takes in a deep breath, holds in, then releases it with a shaky sound. Her hands are clammy when she adjusts her skirt, and there’s a familiar cold sensation spreading through her body.

Since she woke up that morning, her mind is reeling with all kinds of scenarios of what it will be like to face Dai-chan again. Will he scowl and glare like last time? Sneer at her attempt at being friends?

She recognises that she’s might be too paranoid, but her heart pounds heavily in her chest with the mere idea of receiving that cold, detached gaze that haunted his eyes for so many years.

Scratch anxiety. She’s verging on full-on distress.

For the fifth time in the past ten minutes, Satsuki checks the time on her phone. Practice will be over soon, she notes, and so will he be on his way.

She’s back in Kagami’s apartment. She hurried to his place as soon as classes were over, right after he texted to confirm that he managed to come up with an excuse to ditch practice that day, which she remembers with a twinge of remorse.

Even though he assured her that it is fine, it is only once and he chose to help her with this surprise, there’s hardly anything to alleviate Satsuki’s worries, both about Kagami’s progress on his team and Aomine’s reaction to what’s to come. It feels like she’s one good cry away from making this mountain of anxiety collapse in an avalanche. So, she opts to stay quiet and fidget restlessly on Kagami’s couch, her cherry-pink tinted lips becoming even redder as she keeps on chewing them.

But there _are_ some reassuring things that help keep her head.

For instance, it sure is helpful that it was decided – by Aomine, no less – that he would drop by Kagami’s place to have his favourite dish made for him, right after they played ball until the sun went down.

Satsuki had assumed from the beginning Aomine would skip practice on his birthday, but never to spend the entire day with Kagami.

She casts her eyes to the bathroom door, where she can hear the muffled sound of the shower where Kagami is rinsing the sweat he worked up while jogging back home.

Back when she first heard about Seirin’s new Power Forward – a half-American returnee with an aggressive play and admirable jumps – she remembers being a sliver more interested in checking him out than other players before him. Keeping tabs on their rivals was a continuous task, and while she didn’t hold her breath about him being a challenge for Aomine and the other four, she was curious about Seirin’s new guy. Someone with his profile was a rare find, after all.

Thus, on the day they first met (which she admits was a plain _intrusion_ on her part for barging in during their pool training), what she saw in Kagami Taiga was impressive.

There was potential in him. In its early stages, muddled and unpolished. But there was something fierce burning in his eyes that with only one look she knew he could be an exceptional player if his abilities were fostered with the right training.

It took him some time, but soon enough, just as she and the stars predicted, Kagami Taiga became a fearsome opponent. His evolution was huge and watching him play was as inspiring as it was skin-crawling; similarities in him that reminded her of the time when she watched her old friends flourish in their own playing styles while their friendship withered away.

It still… doesn’t feel real, sometimes. That a single guy, his strong-will and teamplay knocked down their barricades and extended a friendly hand, the first one in a long time to have _fun_ when playing against them.

Their group still has issues to solve amongst themselves in order to connect the stray strands of their ruined friendship, but Satsuki is convinced that Kagami Taiga’s arrival in their lives was a miracle. Perhaps the one that was missing to complete and restore the so famous Generation.

However, if the fight he brought with him and delivered hot onto their hands wasn’t astonishing enough, what was truly fascinating was the aftermath of it. Particularly, the close bond that formed between Dai-chan and Kagamin.

That, Satsuki admits, she never saw coming.

To some extent, she foresaw that they would butt heads and be ticked off by each other’s quirks, which were many and hard to ignore, but their competitive and prideful natures would spark a friendly rivalry and, eventually, would play vital roles in leveraging each other’s growth in basketball.

As per usual, she was right. They did.

And yet, something else happened along the way. Like a rare seed that came flying from a distant horizon and found a little crevice in their friendship. It took firm root in there, and now something bigger grows between them.

She is certain of it when she observes Kagami stop what he’s doing to attentively listen to her anytime she mentions Aomine, soaking in every word of her ramblings.

It shows in the fond glint in his eyes when he talks about their one-on-ones and the way his smile broadens when he mentions the absurd topics they talk about while playing videogames, sprawled on the floor in his living room and buzzing off soda. It shows, clearer than all, in the bright flush that rises to his face and neck whenever she pries further into their _friendship._

That is the most fascinating thing that his arrival has brought to them, and it’s something she has not yet fully pinpointed.

The first time it occurred she brushed it off. Kagami Taiga doesn’t look like the kind of guy who gets red in the face except out of anger or when a girl he’s not close with is so casual when prying into his private life, which she did many times this past week. But when it happened over and over again, on occasions she had nothing in mind but inoffensive babblings, Satsuki started to wonder what is going on.

“What could it be,” she mutters to herself as the bathroom door opens and Kagami steps out, dressed in his usual t-shirt and jeans combo and a towel around his neck. “that going on between these two?”

She is not sure yet, but there _is_ something growing between them. And she can’t wait to see what it will blossom into.

“So… Are you ready?” Kagami asks, light and carefree, and laughs when Satsuki responds with a grimace. “C’mon, Momoi-san! The cake seems fine. It _will_ be fine!” he continues with a smile.

“Oh Kagamin,” Satsuki whines, shifting on his couch. She checks her phone again and feels a coldness in the pit of her stomach. Practice is over. He is coming. “I’m thankful for your help and the kind words, but right now nothing could get rid of this—”

She pauses, eyebrows furrowed as she dives into the maelstrom of emotions to pick the right one.

With a little smirk, Kagami ventures. “… Nervousness?”

“No!” Satsuki shoots a glare at him that goes ineffective as Kagami’s breaks into laughter. “I’m just…” she drawls, placing both hands on her lap and staring at them with a strained expression. “… a little worried.”

There’s a quiet, distant tone to Satsuki’s voice that makes Kagami pause. He looks at the hard line of her back and the unfamiliar crease between her eyebrows.

Everything in her is rigid and constrained, easily giving away her anxieties even when she’s too proud to voice it out.

Kagami goes to the kitchen to throws his towel in the washing machine, giving her some space while remembering the first time he saw that same look on Aomine’s face, a few months back.

They were cooling down after playing ball for hours when the topic of what they would do after high school came up.

Since he shot his first hoop, Kagami knew he wanted to go pro. There were many things he still had to sort out, but he had his mind made up and said as much, firm and determined.

That’s when he saw that expression on Aomine’s face, his brow furrowed in a strange, rigid frown and lips pressed in a tight line.

Kagami would be a liar if he didn’t dream of the two of them playing in the NBA, building their careers – their lives – together. He dreaded the thought of them going their separate ways, never to see or play with each other again, and it moved him to ask Aomine if he ever thought about that too.

After a long moment, when they finished stretching and packed their bags in silence, Aomine just shrugged and replied he had some ideas, but that he didn’t think about them that much.

And that was that, the topic coming to a disappointing, fear-inducing end.

However, once they arrived in his apartment and he started preparing dinner, Kagami caught glimpses of that same expression on Aomine’s face. He looked pensive and distracted, his eyes staring at television screen but not seeing anything. For someone with such a big, fat mouth most times, Aomine hardly shared his feelings or thoughts, choosing to bottle them in stoic silence instead. It was clear that there was something gnawing in his mind after that conversation, though, and Kagami could only hope that one day they would reach a point where they could confide to one another. Their thoughts, worries, feelings— anything and everything.

Worried as he was, Kagami didn’t want to press it. If Aomine wasn’t comfortable sharing it on his own accord, he would let him be and instead focus on taking Aomine’s mind out of it, whatever it was.

Kagami shoots a look to Satsuki over his shoulder. She’s bouncing her right leg now, and her gaze is distant as she mindlessly worries her bottom lip. Even in their anxiety, they were somewhat similar.

Like brother, like sister.

“Momoi-san,” Kagami calls. He is turned away from her, tidying up the kitchen for the upcoming surprise, but he can feel the shift of her eyes to him. Her gaze is as palpable as her anxiety, and it feels like it’s burning a hole on his back. “Don’t worry. You managed to crack the eggs just okay in the end—” an indignant gasp comes from Satsuki. “and the cake is ready! Aomine might be an ass, but… This is _you._ He will like it.”

He turns to her, and there’s a hopeful look on her face.

“You guys will make up just fine.”

Satsuki smiles. It’s worried and restrained, but her posture relaxes – if just a little.

“Thank you, Kagamin.”

Kagami nods with a smile of his own. He’s heading towards his bedroom when a thought crosses his mind. Just before reaching his door, he stops in the hallway and blurts out, tone brimming with mischief:

“Oi, Momoi-san! Aomine will be here soon. You’d better greet him by the door and invite him inside when he arrives, yeah? To start off the surprise well!”

And then he closes the door, leaving Satsuki frozen in the living room.

“Wha—” she drawls, staring in the direction he went, slow to grasp the meaning of his words. When she does, the implication hits too hard and she jolts up from the couch, her phone and composure falling to the ground. “Kagamin! Don’t make me do this!” she calls out, to no response. “ _Kagamin!_ ”

* * *

Despite what most people would assume, Aomine Daiki can be just as amicable and cordial – you know, _friendly_ – as anyone with half a heart. It comes naturally, for example, with animals and little kids.

(The first at any time. The later only when they’re not screaming their heads off.)

It’s just, you know, quick to die and leave behind the well-known rock-hard rudeness when people start abusing his generosity.

The people in question this time are Sakurai and Wakamatsu.

Much to his chagrin, Aomine spent an entire week holed up in the school library studying for their exams with Sakurai, who babbled about each topic and scolded him every time he started to doze off, and Wakamatsu, who patrolled the hallway outside or stood vigil just a few tables away from them in case Aomine thought of leaving.

He did try to leave the first day, studies be damned. But before he and Wakamatsu got into each other’s faces the librarian stepped in. She was old and petite, and the glare she wore on her wrinkly face was nasty when she _hissed_ at them to be quiet or get out. That alone would be a reason for Aomine to fuck off, but Wakamatsu stood in front of him, unmoving like a boulder and with a scowl just as hard. And so, he gave up.

Thus, that is how Aomine wasted away an entire week in the school’s library, nose buried in books and bored to tears instead of hanging out with Kagami.

The pedestrian light turns red and Aomine halts to a stop, leaning his shoulder against the pole. His mind keeps going at full speed, though, and the more he thinks about this week, the more puzzled he becomes.

As their new captain, Wakamatsu is busier than anyone else this year as he wiggles into his new role, finding his shape on a seat that was once Imayoshi’s. Because of that, they stand on neutral grounds for now, with Wakamatsu too busy and overworked to spit back the fire that Aomine tosses at his feet.

Shame, really.

That’s why, then, that Aomine can’t see what drove Wakamatsu to hunt him down with more ardour than usual, dragging along poor Sakurai with a heap of books in his shaking arms. His meek brown eyes didn’t meet Aomine’s when they cornered him on the first day, a dead giveaway that he didn’t want to be part of that. So really, what was the meaning of that?

Fucking hell, these people. Just when he was starting to get comfortable around the team and enjoy their company.

Looks like he’ll have to start stealing food from Sakurai again. Just to be petty.

The light flashes green and Aomine starts walking again. He’s vaguely aware of a few familiar shops and buildings as he passes them by, their signs telling how much farther he must go until he finally arrives at Kagami’s. So, he keeps going, walking in long strides and cursing under his breath the slow walkers on his way.

It’s in this hurry that when Aomine turns sharply around a corner, the gym bag slung over his shoulder bumps against his side and makes the edge of the box inside dig painfully in his rib, making him grunt.

Right. _There is that._

His hands inside his pockets ball into fists, a scowl forming on his brow. If the ordeal at school wasn’t inopportune enough, there were other issues during this week that soured his mood even more.

It irritated Aomine how every time he texted or called, Kagami seemed to always have an excuse for not hanging out with him. Throughout the week he tried, over and over again, and every fucking time, over and over again, Kagami had some _stupid shit_ to deal with.

Then, of course, was the fact he didn’t see a hair of Satsuki either. She was missing during practices, out of sight during lunch, and gone before he could look around for her. He didn’t see her once.

Regret churned in his chest the whole time _and he didn’t fucking see her once._

And yet, Aomine can’t deny that thinking about her makes him restless, too.

He still doesn’t know what to say. He knows he needs to do it right, in the proper way. Talk to her clearly and openly instead of handling it as if they were still kids. But every time he tries to think on how to do it his mind gets clouded, serving no purpose other than to leave him stranded in this predicament and contributing to the thunder clouds on his brow.

There’s so much he wants to tell her and he can’t think of a way to address it all, much less apologise to her.

If only there were still kids.

Kagami’s apartment building comes to sight at last and Aomine lets out a sigh, suddenly feeling tired after this short walk. He can only hope Taiga will help him figure out what to do while they wrap this box.

As Aomine enters the building, the sound of his sneakers’ soles against the polished floors hardly disrupts the silence of the main hall, bouncing across the walls for only a second before they are muffled again. High-class places like these always have this stoic characteristic about them, Aomine reflects, pressing the button to call the elevator. And it’s amusing to think a loudmouth like Kagami lives in such a place.

The corners of his lips twitch with a repressed smile. There’s no denying; Aomine is excited to see Kagami and his loudmouth again. He missed his godly food, and staying up late competing in Tekken, and playing basketball with him until their legs failed. Their one-on-ones is what he missed the most, mopping around in his room for days with pent-up energy going to waste. His body yearns for the rush and intensity only Kagami can give him just as much as his hands do to ruffle his mane of red hair.

Today is special, it’s his birthday, and he damn right will indulge in all of it.

When the elevator arrives on Kagami’s floor with a ding and the lights flutter to life, Aomine makes a beeline to Kagami’s door. Maybe his steps are too eager and his momentum too fast, but when he reaches for the door handle and it doesn’t budge, he bumps his chest against the door.

(Actually, he straight-up slams against it. It’s fucking loud. The three other residents on the floor certainly heard him.)

“What the…?” Aomine steps back, staring at the locked door. If Kagami knew he was coming, _told him_ he was waiting, why was it locked? “Tsk, what a dumbass…” Aomine huffs, shifting his bag to the side so he can ring the bell.

The sound is quiet and unfamiliar and Aomine realises for the first time he never heard it until now. It’s kinda funny, he thinks, how he never rung it before; used as he is to always walk in like he already lived there.

(He wishes he did.)

Aomine hears soft steps approaching the door. Any other day he would ready a snarky remark as a greeting, the signature cocky smirk plastered on his face as he demanded a game and his favourite dish as a prize because _he obviously would win_ , _Bakagami. Why do you even ask?_

This isn’t any other day, though, and his mind is sluggish to come up with anything to say, too aware that he’s finally getting to see Kagami again after _so fucking long_ — and be greeted at the door while at it!

It feels… different. Feels good. It’s his birthday and he’s right where he wants to be the most. He’s helpless to contain the boyish smile that spreads on his face this time, and surely something feels weird in his chest because he body-slammed the fucking door and not because he’s finally seeing Kagami again.

Keys jingle on the other side as the door is unlocked with a solid click. There’s a minute pause before the handle turns and the door slides open.

Now, you see. During the past year, Aomine has seen many different views when he walked into this apartment.

Many of them were of Kagami in the kitchen, either cooking up something or cleaning after a meal.

Aomine also found him many times slouched on the couch, perusing a SLAM and headphones on. Kagami would pretend to ignore him by burying his nose deeper in the magazine or mumble along with his music, because he was _‘busy’,_ and this always amused Aomine the most as it invited him to come up with a creative way to grab Kagami’s attention and have it on him.

His favourite, though, wasn’t when he walked in Kagami’s apartment but rather when he woke up in his bedroom in the morning after a sleepover. Compared to schooldays, Kagami takes weekends slower and Aomine can’t help watching him try to work up words in between yawns, moving his long limbs sluggishly around the kitchen as he prepared breakfast for them, unperturbed by strands of his bedhead covering his eyes.

It was one of the funniest – _most endearing_ – things about him, and Aomine never got tired of that view.

(Once, when he was perhaps still half-asleep, he pictured how good it would be to see Kagami like that every day. It vanished from his memory by the time he took a shower, but the want was still there.)

That’s why, then, that he doesn’t understand why this time he is greeted by familiar pink eyes, glossed lips, and a frilly skirt he had to help her choose during one of her shopping sprees.

There is a long pause where they stare at each other, standing still at Kagami’s doorstep. Then Aomine’s tongue finally finds the words it couldn’t muster before, and he doesn’t care if the everybody hears when he bursts out:

“—Satsuki?!”

Satsuki smiles. _Fucking smiles._

“You finally arrived, Dai-chan! Come on in, come on in! We were waiting for you,” she ushers him inside, acting so very jovial.

He must still be stuck in the library and Sakurai is about to slap him awake with a book. This has got to be one hell of a lucid dream because _there’s no fucking way this is happening._

* * *

With his bed finally made and his duffel bag ready for when he and Aomine go to the court to play, Kagami stands in his bedroom with hands on his hips and unrelenting pangs of anxiety coursing through his body.

When Momoi presented him the idea he was immediately onboard – a bit too giddy at the prospect of making a birthday surprise for Aomine –, and after the undeniably hard, _excruciating_ work it took them to get that cake done, he hopes that the reaps of their struggle will be just as sweet.

But now the day has come, and maybe it’s because of what she said and the worried expression she wore on her face, but Momoi’s anxiety is setting his own off.

He still feels confident it will all be fine, just as he told her, but there’s no denying that this birthday surprise is one level above special and it puts more pressure on them.

During the week he spent making that cake with her, Kagami got better acquainted with Momoi Satsuki, who before made him mildly apprehensive and now cracked him up with her disastrous presence in a kitchen and the stories she regaled of previous basketball games and the old times with the “Generation of Miracles.”

(He always laughed harder whenever she said it out loud. The name the press gave them was ridiculous.)

What he got the most from the time he spent with her, though, was the understanding of how deep the friendship between Momoi and Aomine ran.

At first glance it was inevitable to assume the two were dating, what with the way Momoi doted him and nagged at him about everything and Aomine being so nonchalant around such a gorgeous girl. It eventually got cleared up, with both his teammates saying there didn’t seem to be anything between them and later with Aomine himself fake throwing up when Kagami asked him about it ( _‘are you kidding me? That’s like if somebody kissed their sister. Fucking disgusting’_ he had said with a grimace on his face, as though even the thought of that soured the burger he was eating.)

He still didn’t completely understand it, but soon assumed they were just regular friends and was close to shrugging it off— until Momoi came along.

The sweet childhood stories and hilarious, lengthy rants about the troubles she had to deal with because of _‘that stupid’_ painted the whole picture for him to see. Their friendship is special and dear to them, and Kagami is even keener to make sure this surprise goes right to help these two friends get back together.

And well, sure. It also plays in the fact that Kagami hasn’t seen Aomine for days and misses him and wants to make his birthday a good one.

(Good thing Momoi-san was busy with the preparations or she would’ve noticed how giddy and start asking too many questions again.)

It’s thinking all this, then, Kagami walks out of his bedroom, a confident gait in his steps, only to walk into his living room and, lo and behold, find Momoi and Aomine.

They are sitting on the couch, three feet apart, in stiff tense silence and with uneasy expressions on their faces.

Until they notice him, that is. Then their eyes shift to him, Momoi’s pinks gleaming with pleadings for help and Aomine’s blues with a harsh stare, pinning him to the spot.

Kagami feels like a deer in the headlights.

“H-Hey, Aho. Just in time!” Kagami attempts to smile but can only manage an awkward twist of the lips. “This is the first time you’re on time.”

It was a nice try but Aomine is having none of it. He barely reacts to the nickname and the frown on his brow deepens. It makes Kagami realise, way too late, that he should have thought of what would happen when Aomine inevitably found Momoi in his apartment for apparently no reason.

Oh yeah. It’s all coming together.

“Kagami,” Aomine drawls. “what is happening—”

“Well then! Now that everyone is here, let’s get started shall we?” Bless her soul for despite how clearly nervous she is, Momoi is pushing herself to make the best of not a bad, but tense situation, and it helps Kagami to stay focused.

Without sparing another look at them, Satsuki stands up and scurries to the kitchen in clumsy steps. Aomine follows her with his eyes, and when she’s gone, turns his attention back to Kagami.

“Kagami,” Aomine begins again, his baritone voice lowered to a tense snarl. There’s an edge to it like he’s ready to lash out but wants to avoid being heard by Satsuki, who’s doing something in the kitchen very noisily and is making him very nervous. “What the hell is going on?”

Kagami raises his eyebrows. “You pestered me to do something for this day, didn’t you?” he leans his hip against the back of the couch where Aomine sits. “So, you know… We had an idea.”

It’s very vague and the delivery is almost theatrical in how he crosses his arms and shrugs, but it does the job. Aomine’s tense shoulders loosen up and the scowl softens, giving place to a curious stare. Kagami returns it with a smile, saying nothing more.

“Alright! It’s ready!” Satsuki announces abruptly from the kitchen, and the sound of the fridge’s door slamming shut is like the fire of a gun announcing the start of a race.

Aomine makes to turn and look in her direction, but Kagami is swift to step in front of him and block his view.

“What? I thought you said you wanted a surprise!” Kagami says, giving a cheeky grin in exchange for the baffled look he receives from the other ace.

‘No looking now!’ is what he says last before bringing his hands to Aomine’s face and gently covering his eyes.

Physical contact between played a huge role from the moment they met, birthed in their hostile rivalry and nurtured into their friendship. It was an arm slung over each other’s shoulders, the usual pushing and pulling of their arguments and the subsequent horseplay when they forgot what it was they were fighting about

But as time passed, others were added to the growing list. It was holding onto each other’s wrists and arms when trying to prevent the other from winning at a game— sometimes lingering there even when they still won. And as Aomine started to stay over more frequently, and they spent long nights sat sprawled side by side on the couch playing games until late hours, it was the relaxed, lazy way they leaned on each other, bodies flushed together from shoulders to knees.

(It’s hard to fight off the urge to fall asleep when Kagami’s body warmth spreads over to him, but Aomine wonders what would happen if he just did. Just leaned his head on Kagami’s shoulder and closed his eyes.)

And yet, none ever felt as good as having Kagami’s hands touch his face.

It’s a small and simple touch, but the sensation of Kagami’s warm, calloused hand on his face is so wonderful and new that it sets Aomine’s nerves alight and makes him seek for more; a subtle tilt of his head to try and brush his cheek against Kagami’s wrist, too aware of the time they spent far from one another and craving the feeling of Kagami’s body against his, feel the touch of his skin.

There are no words to describe this, but Aomine doesn’t care. He just wants to embrace and sink into it.

The sound of Satsuki’s feet padding across the floor comes nearer and something jingles as she approaches. She sets something on the coffee table and Kagami pulls his hands away.

Aomine opens his eyes slowly, flinchingly; unsure if he should be entertaining whatever the hell it is that these two concocted for him.

Contrary to all the worst ideas he’s conjured, what he sees on Kagami’s breakfast tray with blue candles spelling the number seventeen is a round white cake speckled with something dark and round that he can’t tell what is and watery icing running down from one side.

It is very plain, if not downright sloppy, but its modest appearance is loud and Aomine does nothing but stare, stunned silent in perhaps in one the rarest moments in life.

“Um…” Satsuki clears her throat. Aomine raises his eyes and finds her staring at the cake with a crease in between her eyebrows. “I forgot to leave the icing in the fridge last night, so it looks a bit soupy...”

She studies the cake a moment longer. When she shifts her attention to him their eyes meet for a split second before she lowers them, shifting on her feet.

“But I’m sure it still tastes good.”

Aomine keeps his gaze on her, but as she doesn’t meet his eyes anymore he turns back to the cake. It sits in the middle of the tray in a pool of melted icing, waiting for his judgment.

Once again Aomine is faced with the struggle of what to say. There’s just so much: how he’s sorry for taking out his frustrations on her, that he didn’t want to hurt her, and that he’s thinking about a lot of things lately and is so, so nervous.

Aomine parts his lips and they’re as dry as his throat, making it harder to find the words. He can only stare at this poor cake, which offers no aid and only makes him feel sorry for it.

Kagami watches him with a small grin. That look on Aomine’s face is so rare he can count in one hand how many times he’s seen it before. The parted lips and wide eyes give Aomine such a childlike appearance that, if it were only the two of them, Kagami would’ve liked to look at him a little longer before cracking a joke to snap him out of it.

But that would be tactless. And Momoi is still waiting, so Kagami decides to give him a little push.

“It does look kinda soupy, but it’s still a cake you made yourself, Momoi-san,” and with a meaningful glance toward Aomine, he continues, “the blueberries were a nice touch, too. You did well in choosing them.”

The reaction is belated but it comes nonetheless. Aomine blinks slowly a few times, slightly frowning as the words pass through the white noise in his head. When they finally connect, he leans forward, elbows on his knees, and takes a closer look.

They are clumsily placed and half-drowned in icing, making them difficult to be recognised, but there they are, forming an uneven crown on top of the cake.

“You…” Aomine says, on the verge of stuttering. “You made a blueberry cake for me?”

Kagami leans on the couch’s backrest and props an elbow on it to hide a smile on his palm. Of course, Aho. Are you not seeing it?

In all honesty, Aomine can hardly believe his eyes.

“We made it for you,” Satsuki replies with a short nod. “You haven’t had them for a long time so I wanted to make a blueberry cake for your birthday. I searched online for a good recipe, wrote it down and asked Kagamin for help. He was really nice to agree with it. Then, throughout the week, we met after school and we baked it little by little so we could make this surprise for you.”

The words rush out of her mouth like water from a broken dam. She pauses, takes a breath, and tidies her hair; gathering herself. Aomine is looking at her with awe in his eyes, inoffensive and quite unlike what she imagined he would be like. Next to him, Kagami gives her a reassuring nod.

Satsuki takes a long intake of breath and then, at long last, says.

“I am sorry, Aomine. I said things I shouldn’t have. I hurt you and our friendship and I’ve been cursing myself endlessly for it. I understand if you still don’t want to see my face, but I— I just want to say that you are important to me. And I want us to talk again.”

A brief pause, where a quivering smile spreads on her lips before she adds.

“Happy birthday. Hope you don’t mind the icing.”

With the apology out of the box, a pregnant silence fills the room. Kagami darts his eyes between Satsuki and Aomine. She is standing still with a worried crease between her eyebrows, her jaw clenched and eyes trained on Aomine, who doesn’t look back, his eyes lowered and expression unusually pensive.

As he watches the two of them, Kagami wonders if this is the first time they face an earnest apology from each other.

The silence extends a moment longer until, wordlessly, Aomine reaches for a fork lying on top of the napkins Satsuki brought along. The movement is smooth and at ease, a contrast to the unreadable expression on his face, and under their watchful eye Aomine takes a small slice of the cake for himself – with two blueberries and less of the soupy icing – and eats it.

Momoi’s words were gentle and unwavering when she gave her apology, and Kagami was amazed at the ease with which she opened her heart. He easily imagined she would stammer and be fidgety, possibly lose her trail and make it awkward.

(Or maybe that was more of his style a little.)

However, it’s amusing to see how she almost _flinches_ when Aomine takes the first bite of the cake. Her body locks into a rigid stance and her eyes widen, as though to better watch his reaction. It’s amusing, but Kagami sympathizes with her. He personally knows what it feels like to have someone judge your cooking.

Aomine chews and spins the fork in his hand, still not looking at them. When he swallows, Satsuki swallows alongside him. She wets her lips and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear before stammering out:

“D-Do you like it?” she looks at him with expectant eyes.

Aomine doesn’t answer, reaching out instead for a napkin. He works something with his tongue, as though there’s something stuck in his teeth. Then he brings the napkin to his lips and plucks something out of his mouth.

“Well…” he finally speaks, looking at the napkin. “I say that the icing should be the least of your concerns here, Satsuki.”

A frown is her only response and Aomine smiles, a slight curl of his lips, and shows the napkin to her.

Satsuki steps forward, peering at it. She stares for a solid moment, blinking a few times until Kagami watches her eyebrows slowly knit together into a frown.

Her mouth falls open in disbelief and she shouts.

“—What?! No! It can’t be. _No no no!_ ”

Aomine’s expression finally cracks and he bursts out into laughter, letting Satsuki snatch the napkin out of his hand.

“—What is it?” Kagami glances between the two of them, at a loss of what just happened, but as neither offers an explanation he approaches Satsuki and places a careful hand on her slim shoulder. Peering down at her face, he sees that her cheeks are flushed and lips twisted into a grim line. “Momoi-san? What’s wrong—”

She turns to him in a sharp move and opens the napkin for him to see. Kagami squints at it, confused.

There, in the center of the napkin, inoffensive and yet so glaring, is a piece of eggshell.

Kagami stares, his eyebrows raised high under his bangs and his mouth falling open, dumbfounded at _how fucking unbelievable that is._

“I thought you said there were none in the batter!” Satsuki cries, looking mournful at it. “You said the last eggs I cracked were perfect!”

“Hold on just a minute,” Kagami interjects hurriedly, defensively. “I said they were okay, not perfect,” Aomine snorts behind them. “but when you still couldn’t crack them after the seventh time I showed you, I uh… I decided to just fish out the pieces that I found.”

Satsuki gasps and Aomine’s laughter gets louder.

“But we were short on time, so I guess I missed some…?” Kagami offers an apologetic smile that goes unseen as Satsuki turns her back on him.

She balls up the napkin in her hands and sinks to her knees by the coffee table. “I can’t believe it… After all that work…”

Hearing the crestfallen tone in her voice makes Aomine’s laughter subsides and he looks at her again. Satsuki has her head down and her narrow shoulders are slumped, watching the cake that keeps on melting.

“I’m sorry it isn’t good, Dai-chan… I should’ve known better than trying to bake you a cake."

Aomine has seen that expression on her face many times. The dejected eyes, the quivering lips, and the sad curve on her eyebrows. He’d seen that look on her face so many, countless times. Back when he saw nothing but clouded skies and darkness in his horizons and his limbs weighted like stones at the mere thought of playing basketball again.

He hated seeing Satsuki like that and knowing it was because of him only made him grow even more bitter at himself for bringing her down with him to those miserable depths.

He can’t let that look cross her face again. Not when they were just starting to heal.

“It’s alright, Satsuki,” the sound of her name on his lips after weeks of silence pulls her attention to him, and Aomine smiles when their eyes meet. “I’m actually impressed the only issue are eggshells. It could’ve been much worse.”

“What!” Satsuki exclaims, rising to her feet. Kagami takes a step back, giving the space she needs to let it out. He glances at Aomine from the corner of his eyes, and judging by his lopsided grin, he realises that they have the same understanding of how Satsuki acts.

“You don’t get it! Kagamin and I spent days—” she glances at Kagami here, who nods briskly at her demanding eyes. “— _days_ trying to get the recipe right! Have you any idea how hard it was to find the poppy seeds for this cake?” she stresses.

“Poppy seeds?” Aomine turns to Kagami, who now only sighs heavily.

“They’re super hard to find!” Satsuki goes on. “And then there was the batter which I messed up the first time and the annoying method to mix ingredients, and we had to use so many appliances and—” her flustered tone loses strength, lowering to a whisper. “it was so, so difficult. And it still didn’t…” she sits down again, looking at the cake with despondent eyes. “I just wanted it to be good…”

“It is!” Aomine says hurriedly, leaning his elbows on his knees to get closer to her. “The cake is good, Satsuki.”

Satsuki presses her lips together, eyes downcast.

“But the eggshells…”

“True. I’m not a fan of eggshells,” Aomine agrees with a solemn nod. “There’s too much sugar, too. And the icing turned it into a soup,” he adds, watching her press the heel of a hand to her eyes. He looks at her for a moment and smiles. It’s small but so earnest and happy that Kagami wishes she would lower her hands as to not miss it. “But you made it for me, so it’s perfect.”

Satsuki remains silent, still covering her face with her hands, and Aomine keeps on looking at her, his usually sharp eyes now so fond and patient.

Watching them like this, Kagami can’t help but remember his own issue with Tatsuya.

After years of zero contact, it was nerve-racking to be faced with his sworn brother again. Tatsuya was so different from the one he remembered. The one he grew up with in L.A, who introduced him to basketball and was his first friend in that foreign country. When they met again, it felt like he was dealing with a total stranger– and in a way, he was. Kagami missed most of Tatsuya’s journey; the challenges he overcame, the victories he attained, the defeats he suffered, and the paths he took that led him back to Kagami.

Kagami can still remember how miserable he was facing Tatsuya again on court, the prospect of what winning against him entailed gnawing at him just as bad as what losing meant— to him, to his team.

And yet, he did win. And then, they talked. And talked and talked.

It was difficult initially and awkward at times, but Kagami is thankful that despite being lost for so long in an ocean of bitterness and resentment, they still found each other again.

Things between Aomine and Satsuki’s seem quite different, though. While the nature of their friendships was similar in their sibling-like bond, there is a distinction between them. Perhaps due to the fact they know each other for far longer, or to the chemistry with which they work, but Kagami cannot imagine what issues they faced whenever they argued. It’s a situation unlike any other he’s dealt with before, two people so different and yet so much alike each other, and since only recently he started to understand their friendship, he can only watch it unfold in silence.

At last, Satsuki drops her hands. She tucks some strands of hair behind her ears and raises her head, holding Aomine’s gaze with her own and Kagami feels it. _It’s now._ The moment she (and him, deep down) was waiting for.

“I—” she mentions to speak but Aomine leans back, putting distance between them once more. He brings a hand to his neck and ruffles the hair at his nape, embarrassed and nervous in equal measures.

“I was an asshole,” he confesses. Satsuki’s pink eyes widen but Aomine doesn’t see it, his gaze lowered to his lap. “I mean, worse than usual,” he adds with a laugh, but there’s a pinch of frustration on his face. “but you’re important to me, too, and I shouldn’t have said those things. I’m— I’m sorry, Satsuki.”

The last words come out almost in a whisper, and when he’s finished, Aomine hesitantly shifts his eyes to her again. Satsuki is sitting still and silent like a rock, looking at him wide-eyed and unblinking. It only makes Aomine even more nervous and he fidgets.

He opens his mouth to try and say something else but nothing is coming to mind, so he closes it again. He averts his eyes from hers, seeing if maybe he dropped the words on the rug accidentally.

Truth be told, Aomine is not used to this. To feel this nervous so aware of the warmth in his face and the weight of Satsuki’s eyes, not knowing what to do with himself. But… It has always been like that with her, right? There’s a weak spot in him where she always resided. He brushed it off most of the time, stubborn as he is to admit it, but whenever they fought it was apparent how big is her presence in his life, and how much it hurts when she isn’t there because he was a shithead again.

She was a gift in his life, he knows that. And yet, it seems like he can never give back even half of what—

Oh. Oh, fuck. Right. _The gift!_

With a swift move, Aomine reaches for his bag and yanks the zipper open. He rummages through it, looking for something with impatience while Kagami and Satsuki look on.

“I got something for you,” he says vaguely.

Satsuki blinks. She’s at a loss of what to say, so she says nothing and just watches Aomine fuss with his bag.

When Aomine sits back again, he has a plastic bag in his lap. It’s black and opaque, not giving away its contents. Satsuki stares at it. Then again at Aomine, even more astonished.

Aomine eyes it, his lips twisted in exasperation.

“Damn. I was supposed to make it nice…” he says with a groan and turns slightly to look at Kagami. “I was even thinking of asking Bakagami here to help me with it, but seems like you got to him faster than I did,” Kagami’s eyebrows shoot up and he parts his lips, ready to rebuke the nickname, but Aomine turns back to her with an easy smile.

Without another word, he hands her the bag.

Satsuki’s eyes linger on his face for a moment longer. She’s still awe-stricken at how maturely he handled his own apology, but now there is this… this gift.

A gift. For her. _On his_ _birthday._

A week ago, when she made up her mind to make him a cake and ask Kagami for help, Satsuki knew that this day would be eventful. But this… She’d never imagine Dai-chan doing anything quite like this.

Dazed, she reaches for the bag with shaking hands and holds it in midair for a second. It weights in her hands, a proof that’s it’s real, material, and not a figment of her imagination.

Laying it gently on her lap, Satsuki looks at it carefully. She rotates it in her hands twice, incredulously giving space for curiosity. There’ a square box inside, she can tell. It’s quite hefty too, which only makes her more intrigued. Thus, while making sure to not break whatever is inside, she pinches each side of the bag between her fingers and begins pulling it down. Aomine watches in silence and Kagami glances between the two of them, not sure whose reaction he wants to see more.

He’s curious, but something in his gut tells him that he already knows what it is.

At last, when Satsuki pulls the plastic bag down, his gut-feeling is proven right and oh, it’s so sweet. Kagami doesn’t hide his grin on his palm this time and watches Momoi’s eyes widen as she stares at it in awe.

The box is pastel pink and its sheen material is illustrated with white fluffy clouds, birds, stars, and a rainbow of pastel colours. On the frontside, a transparent plastic cover shows a brand-new clock with the smiling puppy Cinnamoroll. He’s holding a parasol in one hand and waving with the other in rhythm with the clock’s hands, a big smile on his round face.

She can’t believe it. _She can’t believe it._ This must be a dream. Did Dai-chan really—

A cough catches her attention but her eyes are slow to drift from the box and up again to Aomine’s face. It’s unmistakable; his cheeks are flushed, his lips pressed into a tight line, and he has a hand to his neck again, ruffling the hair at his nape. _He’s nervous._

What a rare, rare sight to see!

“The one I gave you years ago is overdue to be thrown away. I told you already,” his voice is hoarse but his face is so, so soft and she can’t look away. Nor can Kagami, who stares at him with a small smile, finally connecting the dots and finding it hard to stop himself from biting his lips and hold his face. “but since you’re such a stubborn idiot, I decided to just go ahead and get you a new one. The people at the store told me it’s a recent model, so… It’s good enough to replace that one, I think.”

Aomine finishes with a shrug, as nonchalant as a teenage guy could possibly be when gifting a girl with Sanrio merch.

There’s a short moment of silence, and when Aomine doesn’t receive a response, he looks over to her.

Satsuki is looking at him, her pink eyes welling up, and she bursts with a little sob.

Kagami and Aomine jolt from their spots, stammering nonsense as Satsuki’s tears keep falling and rolling down her white cheeks.

“Oi, Satsuki! What’s wrong?” Aomine manages to ask, standing up and stepping around the table to crouch down beside her. Kagami stands frozen for a moment, taken aback by her sudden tears, but quickly snaps out of it and rushes to the kitchen to grab some tissues.

Satsuki wipes off the tears with her fingers but still shakes with sobs. Aomine sits down on the floor beside her with a distraught expression on his face. Now you’ve done it, he thinks as he looks at her. The plan was to fix things up and you made her cry, idiot.

Aomine shifts closer, unsure of what to do. “Satsuki,” he calls her, tilting his head to peer at her pale face through the long pink strands. “Satsuki, hey. Talk to me. What’s wrong—”

Before he can finish, a choked gasp is squeezed out of his lungs, his torso suddenly compressed in Satsuki’s crushing hug as she sobs into his chest.

“Dai-chan!” she cries, pressing her nose against his school jersey. “I missed you so much!”

Her voice wavers with sobs, but her tone is so overjoyed that it makes Aomine pause. He glances down at her and spies the content grin splattered on her face, the tears already drying on her cheeks.

Aomine sighs and, dropping his hands from Satsuki arms (ready to push her away as he’s used to), he brings them up to her head, gently patting her hair.

“You dummy,” he chuckles, accepting the crushing embrace.

Kagami comes back from the kitchen with tissues and Aomine’s attention is pulled to him. His red eyes stare at the sight of Satsuki’s face buried on his chest, then move up to his face with a quizzical look.

So… Here he is. In Kagami’s apartment, with Satsuki squeezing the life out of him in a hug and smiling like an idiot. If only there was something where he could hide his face too, much like Satsuki does now, only so those eyes he missed so much wouldn’t see him in this position.

“She’s just being silly. Don’t worry,” Aomine says dismissively but Kagami doesn’t reply, kneeling on the other side of Satsuki instead.

“So, is everything alright?” he asks carefully. “Like… Are you guys fine?”

Aomine can’t help but huff a laugh at his question, at his concern.

“Yeah. We’re fine now.”

Kagami nods and his bright eyes squint slightly in the corners when he smiles at him.

Fuck. Aomine missed that smile, too.

“Kagamin!” Satsuki exclaims suddenly and they flinch. In a swift move, she unhooks one arm from Aomine’s torso and reaches for Kagami like a viper pouncing on its prey, wrapping it around his arm and pulling him into the embrace. Ignoring Kagami’s gasp and the loud thud of his hand slamming down hard on the floor to try and keep his balance, she sings. “Thank you so, so much! You are my saviour and the loveliest person ever!”

“M-Momoi-san—” Kagami grunts, squeezing his eyes shut as her arm slides from his arm and wraps around his shoulder now, her grasp growing unbelievably tight. “I-It’s fine. I’ll always be happy to help—”

“You did more than that!” she continues, tilting her head just so to look at him. The tears have dried on her cheeks already, leaving slight paths on their wake. “Not only you helped me, but also came to save the whole day. And you know~ that night when you made that heartfelt confession about your secret muffins I thought that you were the sweetest guy ever if not a bit funny at how shy you were about it. But now I can only thank you even more for being so good and sweet. I wouldn’t have been able to do it if it weren’t for your help. Both the cake and everything else.”

Kagami is not used to receive such honest, heartfelt compliments, so when she starts to shower him with them, coming at bullet-fast speeds, he feels dazed and prays that the warmth on his face is the result of the tight hold around him and not her words.

He tries to slip out of her grasp one more time to no avail, so he just opts to move his head to a position where he can breathe better. “Thank you, Momoi-san,” he says with a grunt, but manages to smile. “I had fun making the cake with you,” he pauses here to glances at the poor cake sitting in a pool of melted icing on the tray. “It didn’t… come out exactly right. But it served its purpose, right?”

Kagami receives a wide grin from Satsuki. She gently unwraps her arm from around them and reaches for the box on her lap, looking at it lovingly.

“Yes, it did! The plan failed but the result was a success!” and she laughs, the sound light and vibrant.

Able to properly breathe again, Kagami takes in a big gulp of air, closing his eyes as his lungs fill in with sweet oxygen. How the hell could she have a grip as strong as that—

“So,” comes Aomine’s deep voice, who until now listened quietly to their back-and-forth. “What was that about secret muffins?”

Kagami’s red eyes snap open again and suddenly it’s like his air pipes are being constrained all over again.

Aomine is looking at him so closely and so attentively that Kagami swears sparks fly from those electrifying blue eyes and fall on his skin, causing waves of shivers that roll up and down his body which he can barely disguise. Even then, Kagami can’t look away; rendered speechless at the way Aomine gazes into him.

It’s a look both familiar and foreign. He recognises the challenge in Aomine’s eyes, keen to catch up on days of pent-up games they missed. There’s a mischievous glint in them too, looking forward for messing with him again and decidedly curious about what Kagami prepared for his birthday.

But there’s longing too, flicking softly in the blues of his eyes alongside the feelings Aomine won’t speak and which Kagami yearns to know.

They are already so close but the longer they look at each other, the stronger is the urge for Kagami to shift even closer, as though an invisible force is tugging him in. He’s helpless, ensnared in Aomine’s gaze and can only watch, almost hypnotized, the slow curl of Aomine’s lips and the way his tongue pokes out, just so, to lick his bottom lip midway smirk.

His air pipes must be constricted because he _can’t fucking breathe._

Satsuki sits between them, hugging the box with the clock and watching furtively the two guys, not missing how Kagamin swallows and closes one hand into a fist nor how Dai-chan’s smile widens and tilts his head, a simple motion that she’s known for years to be a light, mischievous tease. The sparkle in his eyes, though, is an added detail that she’s inclined to suspect only to come about when he’s around Kagamin.

Oh, they’re so helpless. Guess it’s up to her to push in.

“The secret muffins are Kagamin’s own idea for your birthday surprise!” she perks up, her loud and clear voice putting an end to the spell they were under. “He was inspired by my idea and wanted to do something special himself, too!” she stresses the word ‘special’ because of course she has too. “Alongside the teriyaki burgers, of course.”

Then she sneaks a glance at Kagami. He has inched away from them a little, sitting up straight and looking curiously relieved despite the flush still high on his cheeks. He has a hand in his hair, combing the fiery locks and not looking at them in a poor attempt at being _casual_.

Satsuki swallows a giggle. Kagamin is so cute when he’s embarrassed. No wonder Dai-chan can’t leave him alone.

“Are you hungry? You did not have any snacks after classes, right?” she turns to Aomine again. He’s snickering, his eyes still fixated on Kagami’s awkward demeanour.

“Hell yeah I am,” Aomine replies, briefly shifting his attention to her. The smirk of before has now morphed into a shit-eating grin, toothy and teasing. “As nice as it was of you, that cake won’t do it for me and I refuse to have another bite.”

Satsuki glares. She pushes his shoulder, but the strength of before has vanished and Aomine doesn’t budge, laughing as he holds her hands away from him as she complains about his ‘undeserving, ungrateful bum’ and how he won’t get another birthday surprise from her.

“That’s fine by me,” Aomine retorts. “Next year you can focus on renting an inn in Kagoshima and leave the cooking to Kagami. His food is the best.”

Aomine glances over Satsuki’s shoulder to Kagami who’s looking at him again with curiosity.

“And since you promised to make me that Hawaiian pizza or whatever, you won’t even need to fuss with a cake. Am I not a genius?”

Aomine finishes with a smug grin, which finally breaks Kagami out of his stupor.

“ _I did not!_ I mentioned it once, and only because you asked if I knew any dishes as strange as natto,” Kagami says hotly, with a glare just as fierce.

“Same thing,” Aomine replies solemnly.

“It fucking isn’t! I’m not cooking you shit! And inns in Kagoshima are expensive, too. Fuck that.”

“So what? I’ll be turning eighteen. It’s gotta be special.”

“That’s true. We will go then, only so we can toss your dumbass into Sakurajima.”

“Dude what the fuck?”

Satsuki grins and, with the box in her hands, she stands up and smoothly steps around Aomine. Kagami instantly inches closer, occupying her place as he and Aomine begin one of their many petty arguments.

She leaves the box with the rest of her stuff before going into the kitchen, where she checks the tray of hamburgers resting on the counter. They’re organised in a pile, protected by a plastic wrap and steaming hot. Then she turns to the oven and peeks through the lid’s window at the muffins inside. Kagami finished baking them hours ago and they are much bigger than the test ones he made before, with blueberries spread on the cracked brown surface in large, delectable purplish spots.

Her cake might’ve failed but it was nice that the blueberries didn’t go to waste. One of the goals was so that Dai-chan could eat them again, so something worked out from all this.

“Kagamin, I’m hungry! Can I set the table—” she starts to speak but the words die in her lips when she glances back at them. Aomine and Kagami are still on the floor and don’t hear her, engrossed in wild horseplay, gripping each other’s shirts and arms while swearing, teasing, and laughing about something she has no clue of.

Perhaps there’s nothing at all, she wagers, and they tangle their long limbs on the floor and mess around with each other only because they’ve spent an entire week without this and missed it far too much.

Their laughter is loud and unrestrained but Satsuki doesn’t mind it. Aomine’s nose is scrunched up in a mischievous grin, his hair disheveled and expression almost childlike as he laughs at the taunts Kagami throws at him, who’s in the same state but his face still a little flushed from before, and eyes gleaming with a warmth and tenderness that is fitting to their colour.

Drinking in the view of them together makes her chest swell with happiness but Satsuki quickly turns away, letting them have their moment while she takes the plates and glasses to set the table.

It’s kind of a shame they won’t have a birthday cake to celebrate, but seeing their joy makes her believe that that’s just fine.

* * *

“Kagamin,” Satsuki drawls, long and exaggerated. “I said it’s fine! There’s no issue at all!”

They are standing in front of the gates of a park close to Kagami’s apartment. It’s located right at a crossroads that leads to the train station on the right, and the street court where the aces usually play on the left. The sun is beginning to set and its orange glow casts long shadows. The weather is still hot but there’s a smell in the breeze, crispy and fresh, that carries the first hints of fall.

“But it’s Friday,” Kagami persists. “There might be drunkards about the station already. What if they bother you?”

“Don’t worry about that! I’ve dealt with my share of drunk middle-aged men already!”

“But—”

“Kagami. Come on,” Aomine interrupts, bumping his shoulder against Kagami’s, the other occupied with the gym bag slung over it. “Did you forget about that scary strong chokehold she had on us just hours ago?”

Kagami looks at Aomine, then glances back down at Satsuki. She grins and holds up a lithe arm, flexing it and pulling a pose.

“I’ve got it! No one will mess with me!” she says with a reassuring nod but Kagami still looks at her with a worried crease in between his eyebrows.

But before Kagami can come up with another excuse Aomine rolls his eyes and bumps their shoulders again, this time reaching for the strap of Kagami’s gym bad and pulling at it. It’s childish and remarkably Aomine, so that might be why it brings Kagami’s attention back to him.

They exchange looks, lingering and persistent, and for a moment Kagami pursues his lips, seeming ready to just keep stubbornly pressing the issue, but Aomine’s steady gaze might have done it for he finally gives up with a sigh.

“Alright. If you say so,” Kagami says and Satsuki giggles. “But message me when you get back home, OK?”

“Will do!”

Aomine scoffs, crossing his arm.

“I’m not sure I’m keen on the two of you chatting and messaging and being all buddy-buddy.”

“Oh?” Kagami arches one eyebrow with a mischievous glint in his eyes and a smirk on his lips. “Why is that? Getting jealous now are we, Ahomine?”

The jab rolls off Aomine like water on a duck and he keeps on eyeing Satsuki with austerity. “Nope. Worried.”

“—Eh?” she blinks, puzzled. “What do you mean, worried?”

“I mean,” Aomine continues. “that I’m worried about you getting involved with the likes of Bakagami here,” he glances to Kagami by his side and eyes him up and down, extremely exaggerated. “I’ll have to tell auntie about this.”

He finishes with a finality that leaves both Kagami and Satsuki struck-silent, staring at him with open mouths. Kagami’s the first to break out of it and he pushes Aomine’s shoulder. Hard.

“What the hell are you saying, Aomine?! She’s not—”

“Aomine-kun!” Satsuki vociferates, her voice so loud and heated it makes a few passersby look in their direction. “Drop it! Kagamin is just a good friend and there’s _nothing_ to tell my mom!”

Aomine smirks, the motion slow and so, so satisfied.

Of course. She should’ve known.

“Good,” he drawls, smoothly slinging an arm over Kagami’s shoulder and pulling him closer, crushing their sides together. “You can go home, then. I need to beat Kagami’s ass to the ground and you’re taking up our time.”

Satsuki narrows her eyes. After years she should have expected this from Aomine, but it’s still indignant how rude and arrogant Aomine could be at times. Oh, if only she could have that sweetheart boy of her childhood back!

She’s still glaring daggers when Kagami turns his head to Aomine and elbows his side.

“Oi! Ahomine!” Kagami growls, his nose twisted and mouth contorted into a restrained snarl. “I’ll make you swallow these words _and the ball_ if you keep talking shit.”

“Mhm?” Aomine hums with a condescending sneer plastered on his face. “That so? Damn. I’m shaking with fear… Or could be, if you weren’t all bark and no bite, _Bakagami_.”

The scowl on Kagami’s brow deeper and he gives another shove to Aomine’s side. It looks to be more painful by how Aomine flinches, but the infuriating smirk is steady on his face and it only aggravates Kagami even further.

“I just might if you don’t drop the attitude,” Kagami retaliates. They glare at each other, and their eyes are so sharp they hold each other’s gaze at knifepoint. “I’ll take a bit out of you and leave a scar you will never forget.”

That is far from a tease or a jab. Kagami’s words verge on threatening and there’s thunder forming on his brow and lightning sparking in his eyes. It makes Satsuki’s own irritation dissipate, concerned that the two might start a fight right there on the street.

Before she can even step between, though, Aomine lets out a laugh – almost a _giggle_ – and she and Kagami stare at him.

“You really are the best,” Aomine says, and the look he gives Kagami now is different; his eyes are a tad softer, more attentive, and a smile spreads on his lips as he rejoices over Kagami’s challenge. “Sounds good. I want that.”

If it weren’t for Aomine’s arm around his shoulders, Kagami might’ve stumbled backward. The frown on his brow remains but Satsuki sees the slight change; the thunder clouds that were forming on his brow before are quickly swept away and Kagami parts his lips, either looking for words or for air after Aomine’s words came in like a tornado and took away his breath.

(At this point she should start considering taking photos of all the faces Kagami makes. They’re all so good.)

She bursts out in laughter, not bothering to cover her mouth.

“You’re so annoying, Aomine-kun,” she says. In her arms is the gift Aomine gave her, back to its black plastic bag. “You’re lucky you have Kagamin. I don’t think anyone would be up to deal with you.”

The remark pulls them away from their too personal of a confrontation and they turn to her. She is beaming, hugging her gift protectively against her chest, and the sight of it brings a smile of Aomine’s own.

With a chuckle, he reaches for Satsuki with his free arm and pets her hair. The gesture is affectionate, Kagami knows, but Aomine’s large palm and long fingers engulf Satsuki’s head completely and the display is a little comical.

But he can’t deny it’s sweet when he catches a glimpse of Satsuki’s smile as Aomine ruffles her hair.

Then, Satsuki abruptly pulls away from his hands and the prospect of having a bird’s nest in her head, and when she looks up at Aomine and her smile is gone, now a sharp expression adorning her face.

“So…” she begins, slow and deliberate. Kagami blinks, confused at this strange turn. Satsuki runs a hand through her hair, smoothing the messy strands before flicking it back with one hand. She turns up her nose, the gesture dripping with a superiority that looks so very familiar. “It seems we are done here.”

She is addressing Aomine, who is unfazed at her tone.

Following her lead, for all it seems, he nods solemnly.

“Looks like it.”

Satsuki gives a nod of her own and Kagami flicks his eyes between them, disoriented.

“Then I’ll let you be,” Satsuki drawls, adjusting the strap of her satchel on her shoulder.

They stand still, considering each other with cool, searching gazes. It lasts for a good while, and for a split moment, Kagami thinks he sees something in Satsuki’s pink eyes. He can’t be sure if he saw it right, and it compels him to turn to Aomine and check if something just transpired right there between them.

Before he can even act on it, though, Satsuki finally cracks, and she giggles, a grin spreading on her glossy lips.

“You big, annoying idiot!” she sticks out her tongue, and it’s so childish that she easily earns a chuckle from Aomine.

Well… That was that. Maybe he thought wrong, and that was just another strange ritual of them, it seems. Nonetheless, Kagami s learning a lot about these two from these interactions.

“See you on Monday! And don’t be late for practice! The team will start a new set of drills,” Satsuki reminds him.

Aomine shrugs, giving a dismissive wave of his hand. “Yeah, yeah. See you.

Satsuki shakes her head, turning to Kagami now. “And thank you once again for all the help, Kagamin! The burgers and the muffins were great!” she says next, giving a short bow to the Seirin ace.

Kagami grins, his chest swelling with pride. “Thanks, Momoi-san. It was fun.”

“And promise me you won’t let Aomine-kun win. He’ll be insufferable if he does,” she throws a pointed look at Aomine, who rolls his eyes as Kagami’s body besides his shakes with that familiar rich laughter.

(Aomine tries not to smile himself. He missed the sound of that laughter a lot, too.)

“I promise. That’ll be my birthday present for him,” Kagami assures her, and Aomine tells him to shut up.

They say their goodbyes, Satsuki emphasizes for Aomine to not be late on Monday, _seriously,_ and Aomine finally reaches his limit and tunes her out.

With one last wave, Satsuki turns around and crosses the street with the other pedestrians. They stay a little longer to watch after her, seeing her turn right towards the station until they lose sight of her small figure in the crowd.

And that would be that, the end of an eventful, kinda stressful, very delightful day.

But there is a thought gnawing at Satsuki’s mind. It’s been there, whispering in her ear for the whole week, and she’s reached a point where she can’t brush off her suspicions any longer.

Thus, Satsuki walks a little further ahead, just to be at a safe distance, then steps to the side on the sidewalk to avoid getting bumped by others and looks back to the park’s gates.

The two aces are not hard to miss and she easily spots them, making their leave as well. Aomine still has his arm around Kagami’s shoulder but he’s leaning even closer than before, their heads almost brushing. He seems to have said something funny for Kagami throws his head back and laughs, a single bark that’s loud enough for her to hear even at this distance.

She keeps watching, a tiny and incessant voice inside her – _her woman’s instinct_ – insisting for her to stick around. It’s a little awkward, loitering around and looking at them like a weirdo. But surely, she thinks, her gut feeling never failed her and so there must be something—

A gasp rises in her throat but she presses her lips together and holds it in, following with her eyes Kagami’s moves with the sharp attention of a harpy eagle.

It’s slow, perhaps unsure (unused?) about it, but he doesn’t stop. Gently, so unlike the guy she’s come to know this past week, Kagami frees his arm trapped in between his and Aomine’s bodies and wraps it around Aomine’s waist. Aomine scoots closer, so natural and at ease, and joins Kagami in his laughter.

Satsuki has great pride in her acute attention and sharp eyes; no single move escaped her scrutiny, and no team in Japan held secrets she didn’t know. With skills unmatched by no other, she always had a keen sense to know when others had something more beneath the surface, whether in the basketball business or in other occasions.

And yet, she thinks, bringing up a shaky hand to cover her smile, never before she felt so grateful for these skills until this very moment.

Aomine and Kagami, still in that embrace, turn a corner and disappear from her sight. It’s doesn’t matter, though. Her mind keeps playing the scene she’s just watched, over and over, as if they were still there laughing together as nothing else mattered in the world, and soon she is misty-eyed.

Satsuki roughly wipes off the tears with a sniff. She adjusts her satchel and the bag with the clock in her arms, gathering her composure as best as she can before resuming her way towards the station. She’s grinning widely, her spirit soaring high and almost making her sprint down the streets.

Oh, Kagamin. Dai-chan. You big, lovey-dovey dummies.

* * *

“Ahh! Much better!”

After such a long and emotional day, a long and warm bath was very much in need and now, clad in fresh pajamas, Satsuki plops down on the chair by her vanity dressing table with a sigh. She unties the towel from her head, and the damp hair spills over her shoulders in odd curves, awry from being wrapped in the towel knot for too long.

Picking up the hairdryer and plugging it at the wall socket near her bed, Satsuki begins to dry it. It’s an automatic motion, carefully running her fingers through the strands to get rid of knots and to spread the heat evenly, but this time it’s also— absent-minded, her thoughts far away from the present moment.

Now that some time has passed and she’s finally cooled down after the whole affair, her mind is reeling at the conversation they had at the table when they say down to eat.

 _“Satsuki,”_ Aomine prefaced, his eyes set on the burger before him and not meeting hers. _“I know I already apologised, but there’s something else. I uh… I’ve been thinking about some stuff lately. Some big stuff. And it’s been stressing me out, and it’s kinda why I snapped at you that day. So… I wanted to talk to you about it.”_

He was speaking slowly, considering his words. For all his snarky remarks and brash arrogance, when it came to his sincere emotions, Dai-chan always handled them carefully, and whenever he did she knew it was about something important. She sat still, mid-chewing and waiting for him to continue.

_“I— I want to play in the NBA.”_

The mass of brioche bun and teriyaki meat turned into a stone in her mouth. Or so it felt like it, for what other reason her jaw would’ve dropped so fast?

Aomine grimaced, recoiling away from the table and from her.

_“Satsuki! That’s gross, dude!”_

_“I-I’m…!”_ she had gasped, her face growing hot. How unladylike! She had an urge to hide under the table in shame, but it only being a four-seat, there would be no room for her and the two pairs of long legs. Instead, she grabbed a napkin and covered her face, swallowing the mouthful of burger before speaking again. “ _W-What can I say? I’m surprised! I mean… What?! Where did that come from?”_

She had turned to Kagami for a more articulate explanation, but he was equally surprised. _Unexpectedly surprised._ At that moment she didn’t think so much about it but seeing the same look of surprise on his face was curious. Even more so when she is now sure that the two of them were discussing joining the NBA together for some time now.

Then Kagami and Aomine started a back-and-forth, talking about things she didn’t know about in a pace too fast for her to catch up. Kagami was still surprised, evident by his expressions and gestures, but there was an edge of excitement in the tone of his voice that caught her attention. She did her best to keep track of it while Aomine tried to reassure both of them that yes, dammit, he wants to go to America and pursue a career in the NBA.

She sighs and puts down the hairdryer and checks the tips of her hair. They’re still damp but she’s too tired to be bothered. So, unplugging the hairdryer and putting it aside, she flips her hair back and reaches for her comb.

They sat at the table for quite some time, with both Aomine and Kagami talking about basketball, America, BUKA, ULTA, or UCLA, or whatever it was and the other plans – _their_ plans, as they put it – on how to achieve all that while she sat there, listening intently and sometimes asking questions while her burger grew cold.

The shock of that confession left her so dazed that she didn’t see the many glaring issues back then as she does now. Their plan was as solid as a sandcastle, and sure, while they had just begun thinking and discussing it, it showed how unprepared they were in tackling a challenge as big as the NBA.

And yet… The sparkle she saw in Dai-chan’s eyes, so electrifying as he talked and explained and _raved_ about his goals was everything she needed. Now, sitting in her bedroom and thinking about the look on his face only makes her more inclined to help and guide them along than discourage them from pursuing that dream.

“Dai-chan playing professional basketball in America…” she mutters dreamily, smiling at nothing.

Now that she’s thinking about it… Could he have been hurt by what she said about his grades when they argued, she wonders?

Oh, if only she had known sooner. It was so sweet when he said he was looking for a private English tutor, too! Even though Dai-chan has forgiven her, knowing now about his plans brings a twinge of guilt and shame to her chest for taking a jab at his grades.

Satsuki puts down her comb and inspects her appearance on the vanity’s mirror. Her hair is tidy and blessedly free of the frizz that haunted it this past week, and although there are still shadows around her eyes of poorly slept nights, it’s nothing an eye cream and plenty of rest won’t fix.

She’s already feeling much better after making up with Dai-chan and is confident that nothing, Inter-High or finals alike, will ruin her days.

Tying up her hair in a low ponytail, Satsuki moves from the chair to her bed, where she flops down with a heavy sigh, staring at the ceiling.

She knows she wants to help Aomine, to see him succeed in everything he does, but she can’t help but feel unsure about whether she’ll be able to follow him to the NBA as she did to Tōō.

It also saddens her to think that one day they could go their separate ways, with him so far away from her. But still, knowing he found his love for basketball again and is full of dreams fills her with ultimate joy, and she’ll do her best to help him.

Plus, as Satsuki recalls how excited Kagamin looked as Dai-chan told them about going to the NBA, and then the small, fond glances and smiles they exchanged when they thought she was too busy stuffing her face with muffins, and later the way they looked so happy together that evening as they were leaving to play basketball…

Well. She knows that even if she can’t go with him, Dai-chan will be alright in America. He will have the best of companies with him there.

Satsuki grins, trailing her gaze across the ceiling of her bedroom. There are many things which she and Aomine have to talk about, and after the inconspicuous nod Aomine gave her at the park’s gates, which went mercifully unseen by Kagamin, he agrees as well. She’ll put off the conversation for a while until Inter-High is over and everybody is more relaxed, but it sure is good for them to be able to communicate with a simple look. There are so, so many things she wants to ask him!

She can’t wait for it, but that’s enough for her tired head for today.

Satsuki takes a few more minutes to prepare for bed. She diligently applies her skincare routine, from cleansers to moisturizers, and later puts away her shoes and satchel inside her closet. The extra muffins she brought with her go to the fridge so she can have for breakfast in the morning, and then she readies some clothes for tomorrow. When all is done, Satsuki spreads her duvet on her bed, fluffs her pillow, and at last, after a week of restless nights, she climbs onto the bed and pulls the duvet up to her nose.

She snuggles in bed, rubbing her face against the pillow and letting out a satisfied little sigh.

On the shelf next to her bed, the new clock ticks softly alongside the older model, standing side by side like long-lost siblings, with Cinnamoroll waving his arm and lulling her to blissful sleep.

* * *

The next morning, sitting at the kitchen table after breakfast, Satsuki glares at her phone screen.

Her night’s sleep was great. She slept like a rock and woke up refreshed and invigorated. She took a nice bath, did her morning skincare routine, and the day is just beautiful, with clear skies and a gentle breeze.

That is why, then, that Aomine Daiki has no business ignoring her messages like this.

“Are you seriously still sleeping?” she huffs, giving up. She closes his window and switches to Kagami’s, to which she types the following.

_[Good morning, Kagamin! I hope I’m not bothering you at this hour but is Aomine-kun not awake yet? He’s not responding to my messages.]_

And a Moomin sticker of him with his cheeks puffed and arms crossed to disguise how annoyed she actually is.

With the message sent, she puts down the phone next to her plate where lies one of the muffins Kagami baked yesterday. Taking it in her hands, she searches for the right place to start and then takes an enthusiastic bite of it, humming loudly as her mouth bursts with the flavour of blueberries.

Kagami’s cooking is out of this world. Hopefully she will get to taste his food again.

(She is already fantasizing with a cherry pie. Oh, if he made one for her! She would die happily.)

Her phone beeps with the notification for a new message. Satsuki washes down the muffin with some white tea and, putting down the cup, she taps the screen and finds Kagami’s quick reply.

_[‘Morning, Momoi-san! It's no bother. Been awake for some time now and just started making breakfast. And yeah, his lazy ass is still on bed.]_

She groans. Just as expected from Dai-chan. At least Kagami is making them something to eat.

On weekends Aomine would always wake up past noon if she didn’t get him out of bed, so it’s good that this time she doesn’t have to worry about him not having all the important meals of the day.

_[Ugh. I imagined he was! But hey, what are you guys doing today?]_

The reply isn’t as fast to come this time, so she takes another bite of her muffin. What could she do today, she wonders? Her girlfriends will be busy with prep school until sundown, so she has the entire day free. She could catch up with her TV shows or study for the upcoming exams, but the day is looking too beautiful to stay stuffed inside her bedroom—

Another message comes in. She doesn’t put down her muffin this time and picks her phone with only one hand.

_[Eh, I dunno. The usual, I guess. Basketball until lunch, then videogames. There’s nothing in the cinema to watch right now, so we’ll be staying around here.]_

She stares at it for a while, rereading it a few times.

So… They’ve gone out to the cinema together already. Huh.

Satsuki doesn’t know whether to be angry that Aomine stopped telling her about his dates or that he and Kagami—

_[What about you? If you want you can come hang out with us!]_

Satsuki splutters on her muffin and hastily reaches for her cup of tea, taking a long swing of it between coughs. Her cheeks burn with embarrassment and there’s hot tea inside her nostrils, and she can only be thankful that her mom went to the grocery store, else she would’ve seen this spectacle.

Kagami’s a sweetheart, but she could never intrude on their time together like this. Dai-chan would be so mad at her, too!

Once her breath is even and her face is clean, she types her reply.

_[Haha, it’s fine! I just asked because his mom called me this morning. She will make dinner tonight to celebrate his birthday, so be sure to tell him that for me, okay?]_

There’s no time for her to put down the phone and continue her post-breakfast snacking, for Kagami soon texts back, perhaps done making their own.

_[Oh, sounds nice! I’ll tell him once he’s up… Actually, I better go kick him out of bed right now. He whines when his food gets cold, but never gets up in time for it. Pisses me off every time.]_

She laughs. Just as expected from Dai-chan indeed.

_[Alright! Have a good day, boys! And make sure to not be late for dinner, alright? Aomine’s mom gets pretty scary when she makes him food and he’s late for it. I think she went grocery shopping recently, so she’s bound to make a lot of delicious things!]_

_[I’m sure she is lol. Thank you for notifying me, Momoi-san. Have a good day yourself!]_

Satsuki smiles and sets down her phone. Another bite of the muffin leaves the corner of her lips smudged with the blueberry filling, but she doesn’t bother to clean up as she finishes it up. Once it is done, she reaches for her teacup again, nursing it gently.

With all the urgent matters dealt with, she sits by herself at the table and looks out the window over the kitchen sink. Watching the trees across the street sway in the breeze, she wonders what to do with herself.

For once she has a free schedule, so unless she caves in and stays holed up in her room watching TV shows or reviewing her class notes, this entire day will be wasted.

Neither of these options is really tempting, though, and so she still finds herself in a limbo.

“Mhm…” she props an elbow on the table and her chin on her knuckles, gazing at the view outside the window. She thinks back to what Kagami texted her with a pout. “They play together every day and never seem to get bored of it… It even seems like they have even more fun with each game,” she takes another sip of her tea.

Yeah, alright, she admits it: she feels a little jealous of Aomine. If only for the fact he has someone so special he could spend the days with.

“Must be nice…” she sighs into her teacup before emptying it with one gulp.

But that’s fine. She is happy they have each other, and she _will_ find something to do with herself today if it’s the last thing she does—

It’s when she’s telling herself that while refilling her cup that another beep from her phone notifies her of a new message. Satsuki stops, frowning at her phone with the ceramic kettle still in her hands. They should be having breakfast by now, so who could it be?

She finishes pouring her tea before picking up her phone and tapping the screen to see who it is.

‘1 new message from Wakamatsu K.’ is all her phone shows her, waiting for her decision.

It’s one simple enough. She taps on the notification and the LINE app opens again, and she reads his message with curiosity.

_[‘Morning, Momoi-san. Just wanted to know how the birthday surprise for Aomine went. Was he even on time for it?]_

She huffs a laugh and props both elbows on the table, her fingers sliding rapidly across her phone’s screen as she types a reply.

_[Good morning, Wakamatsu-kun! Aside from the cake, which I ruined completely, the surprise was a success! And yes, he arrived just on time, haha! He loved it, and we had a good time!]_

When the bubble of her colour slides in, she rereads it twice before deciding to add the following.

_[I want to thank you again. You and Sakurai-kun were a huge help! Did you sleep well? I’m sure Aomine-kun was a handful, so I hope you’re well-rested!]_

Putting down her phone for a moment, Satsuki reaches quickly for her cup, taking a long sip. The tea is hot and her tongue gets uncomfortably warm. Great. It will pair well with the warmth on her cheeks, too.

_[Don’t mind it! Sakurai looked like he had fun studying with our ace, despite the fact he was asleep most of the time.]_

Then he adds.

_[And Aomine doesn’t deserve cakes for his birthday, so that’s just fine. Glad to know it went well, though. And yeah, I did lol. But he only tried to cause problems once, so it was all good.]_

Satsuki huffs in a laugh, remembering Kagamin saying the same thing. Looks like she’s a bit biased over Dai-chan. Or maybe she just loved cakes— even though they didn’t have any at the end of it.

_[But once is one time too many for a lot of people! I know you told me to forget about it, but I insist: if you ever need something, you can count on me to help, alright?]_

Wakamatsu’s reply takes some time to arrive, so much so that she’s starting to wonder if he’s forgotten about it and moved on with his day when it finally slides across the screen.

_[Well, I actually would like to ask you something, now that you mention it.]_

There’s only enough time for her to raise her eyebrows before he texts next.

_[I need new shoes. Mine are way too beaten and I’m kinda bored of them. Do you know anywhere I can go to browse for something nice?]_

Satsuki takes less than a minute to reply, but she still takes _some_ time to do it. She’s mildly taken aback by being asked for help for something like that, but she’s just as happy about it.

Thanks to Aomine she knows countless shoe stores in Tokyo, so many she could write a sizable guide for anyone interested.

The best thing, though, is to be the guide herself. Thus, she replies.

_[Sure thing! I know plenty of fantastic places! If you want I could take you around and show you the best ones. Some are holes in the wall and hard to find, but I guarantee that they’re awesome!]_

And truly, there really are so many to visit! There are big and well-known shops in Shibuya and Harajuku’s Aoyama, which constantly updated their wares and held events for limited editions, but paying a visit to Shimokita and Daikanyama to see what the little shops over there had to offer was always an option when she and Dai-chan went shopping. It wasn’t always guaranteed, but sometimes they found such good gems in those places that it would make up for the whole trip.

Plus, even a shopping-lover like her gets exhausted in the gigantic crowds in the major centres.

The phone beeps again and Satsuki realises with a startle that she’s gotten so distracted that the phone screen locked.

She fails to unlock it three times because of her greasy fingers until at last she opens LINE again and reads.

_[Cool. Yeah, sounds good. What day would be good for you?]_

…Why does this message sound so embarrassed, she wonders?

Maybe it isn’t, and that’s just one of the shortcomings of texting rather than talking face to face, which makes it hard for one to sense the tone of the conversation.

But… it does sounds at least a little shy, doesn’t it? Satsuki tilts her head, looking at the message with an amused little smile. There’s a lot to learn about the new captain, that’s for sure.

_[Haha, actually~ I’m totally free today! I just finished breakfast and was already getting bored because I have nothing to do. So, if it’s good for you, we could go this afternoon!]_

Satsuki absentmindedly scoots to the edge of the chair and crosses her ankles. She stares at the ‘typing…’ status under his profile picture for a long while until Wakamatsu replies.

_[Nice! Today’s good for me, too. We meet at the station, then?]_

Smiling widely, she agrees with the plan. Yes, let’s meet at the station! I’ll be standing by the kiosks if I arrive first. No problem. I’ll text you when I get out. Will we have lunch outside, then? Oh, sure! I can show you my favourite restaurant too, and I promise it’s not the cutesy type, haha! Good. I’m not sure I have the clothes to wear in places like that, anyway.

Taking the chance, Satsuki easily jokes about helping him find the clothes for such an occasion once he gets his shoes, to which Wakamatsu retorts with a snarky reply before saying he will go ahead and get his things ready, to which they say their see you soons.

Oh. That’s right. She will be meeting him in just a few hours. _Right!_

Standing up, Satsuki hastily cleans the table and washes the dishes, and when putting away the milk back in the fridge she notices the transparent container where she stored the blueberry muffins.

It would be the polite thing to do, right? To offer Wakamatsu one of the muffins they had for Aomine’s surprise? After all, he _did_ help to make it happen.

She was already planning to offer the extra ones to the rest of the team come Monday, but there’s a subtle but clear difference in giving the team the muffins, as a group, and bringing some _only_ for Wakamatsu…

“No. No there isn’t,” Satsuki refutes herself, shutting the fridge while making a mental note to grab some before leaving. “There’s no difference at all. He’ll just get to taste them before the others.”

She vehemently tells herself that while going back to her bedroom, the sound of her feet against the polished wooden steps as heavy as the pulse of her heartbeat in her chest.

She’ll just give him some of the muffins in a plain container when they sit down for lunch, that’s it.

Yeah, that’s it. There’s nothing different or embarrassing about this _at all_.

And so, arriving at that conclusion and shoving those thoughts aside, Satsuki rushes into her room and opens her closet, rummaging through her clothes to find an outfit. She should get her makeup ready, too. And her hand purse. Should she tie up her hair? Maybe braid it? It is kind of windy, isn’t it? She doesn’t want to be all disheveled when they’re out. Maybe she should bring her coat, just to be sure. What about perfume? It’s a bit too much, right?

Or maybe not?

Ah, okay. Slow down, woman.

They’re only going to shop for shoes, but she is already so excited about it.

Satsuki looks out the window once again. She’d left it open when she woke up and the breeze blows inside, playing with her hair and making the wind-chime sing its melody.

The day sure is beautiful. She smiles, looking up at the sky. She hopes Dai-chan and Kagamin will have as much fun today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ho boy. This one took everything from me to get out. I mostly struggled with editing, for English is not my mother tongue and a lot of things I wrote initially didn't make sense when I analysed them. I assure you that I will come back here a few days later to look through the chapter again and most likely change a few things, and thus I apologise in advance if you came across anything weird, but that is it!
> 
> The lockdown in my country has been going for two weeks now, but aside from making sure my grampa and his stubborn butt stays inside, everything is going fine! I wish all of you the best during these difficult times. Keep your heads cool and your hands clean, and we will overcome it together. And thank you so much, for all of you who dropped by and read my work!
> 
> Okay, that's all the time I've got. I got to get back to my banana chips and read Kryzanna's "Do You Believe in Fate?"


End file.
